I Have A Right To...

To illuminate this period of social distancing and offer you meaningful activities, Equitas has adapted some of its activities to offer them online.

Here is a physically distant version of I Have a Right To..., drawn from Building Inclusive Communities guide and the Play It Fair! toolkit.

This activity can be done with your family, or can be facilitated in any physically distant camps.

• Age: 6+
• Time: 20 min
• Purpose: To experience teamwork and to think about how we can help ensure human rights are respected.

You can download the instructions of this activity as a PDF to share it more easily: I Have The Right To

Material:

• None required.

How to play:

1. Divide the children into pairs. Each pair or team is made up of a “Runner” and an “Actor”. They should stand opposite each other on either side of the play area.

2. Mark on the floor where the children should stand using visual tools such as tape (for flooring) or chalk marks (for pavement). Ensure that these markings are 2 meters away from one another.

3. As the leader of the game, you should stand in the middle but out of the play area so that all players can see you.

4. Explain to the children that you are going to act out 4 different human rights by the pair needing to act out four different positions you will describe to them. Each right as a corresponding position. Both members of the team are needed to act out this right. First the Actors take on one of the positions and then the Runners run to the Actors to complete the position.

5. Remind them that as they are acting out their positions they must remain at a 2 meters – also about 2-3 arms lengths – away from their team members. None of the positions require them to get closer than that.

6. Call out 1 of the 4 human rights. The last team to complete the position becomes the next caller. The remaining Runners and the Actors return to their original places on either side of the play area and wait to hear the next right to be acted out.

Descriptions of 4 positions (but feel free to come up with more corresponding to other rights):

The right to education – one acts as a teacher writing on a whiteboard and the other as a student sitting at their desk.

The right to security - one acts out closing the door and the other acts out locking it.

The right to express oneself - one acts as a painter or drawer while the other acts out asking them about the meaning.

The right to rest - one acts as someone sleeping while the other acts as someone turning off the light.

Group discussion:

Feel:

1. How did you like the game? Why?

Think:

1. What are the 4 rights we acted out?
2. Can you name some other rights too?
3. Can you think of any new acting positions to represent these rights?
4. Could 1 person act out a right on their own? Why or why not?

Act:

1. What are our responsibilities to ourselves and to others to show these rights?
2. What can we do together to ensure rights are respected in our groups?
3. For all of us to enjoy the rights we acted out, what are our responsibilities to ourselves and to others?
4. What can we do together to ensure rights are respected in our group?

Human rights education for building welcoming and inclusive spaces.

This activity uses our 3-step participatory approach to promote learning about human rights and human rights values leading to action:

1. Children and youth participate in activities that promote learning about human rights and human rights values (e.g. inclusion, respect for diversity, responsibility).
2. Children and youth discuss how an activity made them feel, what it made them think about, and what they can change (act) in their own attitudes and behaviours and those of their peers.
3. Together children and youth take action to promote respect for human rights values and children’s rights, and greater understanding, acceptance and inclusion in their classrooms, school playgrounds and communities.

Creative Commons Licence

Except where otherwise noted, content in this document is licensed under Creative Commons, Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Where material is attributed to a copyright owner other than Equitas, this material is not subject to the Creative Commons licence.

• If you have not modified the material in anyway, use the following: Equitas – International Centre for Human Rights Education. Speaking Rights: Human Rights Education Toolkit for Youth is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
• If you have modified, adapted or remixed the material in anyway, use the following: This work, [NAME OF YOUR PUBLICATION] is adapted from Equitas – International Centre for Human Rights Education’s Speaking Rights: Human Rights Education Toolkit for Youth used under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. [NAME OF YOUR PUBLICATION] is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.