On 27th of April, 2009, government and civil society experts from Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Russia and Ukraine began a three-day meeting in Vilnius to discuss improving human rights education for young people.

The meeting, organized by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) with Lithuania's Ministry of Education and Science, examines achievements in the area of human rights education to identify good practices that can be replicated in other countries. YHRM representatives Andrey Yurov (Honorary President) and Anastasia Nikitina (member of Coordinating Council) took part ib the meeting.The brief reports on the state with Human Rights Education for children and youth both in formal and non-formal settings in the countries of the region became the food for thought for the indepth discussions.

Anastasia Nikitina says "It was the first meeting of that kinf and many participants said that it was extremely useful for them and helped them to see the picture of the region and understand their own capacities, strengths and weaknesses".

Participants tried to find similarities and differences of the national situations and develop common stategy to be used by OSCE in the future. The necessity to work on common standards and common programs in the sphere of human rights education by conducted by Council of Europe and other international organizations – both nongovernmental and intergovernmental became one of the discussion points.

The idea to establish the regional association of teachers, educators and trainers in the field of human rights education (both representatives of formal and non-formal education) aroused and got support of the particpants from Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Belarus.

In general, the meeting - the first such event in the region bringing together representatives from both EU and non-EU states - is expected to initiate new programes and partnerships in the field of formal and non-formal human rights education for children and young people. At least, the analysis of current situation and planning on the base of geographic and thematic aspects have been yet made. This year the annual Human Dimension Implementation Meeting of ODIHR office will include a special day on Human Rights Education in OSCE region and besides follow-up of the forum an OSCE "Compendium of good practices in Human Rights Education" will be presented there.

YHRM International Service