Road to Rights

This is a peer facilitation training course aimed at young people, educating them on human and children’s rights and equipping them with the necessary skills to teach others about their rights. It was piloted in 2001 with the hope of achieving a course that would be accredited to a formally recognised qualification.

This was realised with the development of the Road to Rights course in 2003, accredited to OCN level 3.

Road to Rights focuses on children’s rights at home and overseas. It recognises that peer education is the best way to reach children and young people. Through empowering young people and enabling them to develop facilitation skills, the programme assists young people to engage in ongoing human rights debates and developments giving them the confidence to make appropriate informed choices in the future.
The purpose and aims of the programme are:
Purpose

Provide learners with the knowledge and understanding of children's rights both locally and globally and facilitation skills to enable them to promote a culture of rights among other young people from a variety of ethnic, religious and sociologic backgrounds.
Aims

• Enable learners to explore the processes and dynamics of group development.
• Assist learners to identify skills involved in-group facilitation.
• Provide opportunities for learners to examine the process of designing and delivering training workshops.
• Encourage learners to explore the area of children's rights both theoretically and contextually in Northern Ireland and in other developing countries.
• Examine relevant international and domestic legislation including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, The Human Rights Act and the Equality and Human Rights provisions of the NI Act from a children's rights perspective.
• Identify broader human rights issues such as poverty, social justice and global development.
• Investigate and identify opportunities for the application of learning into innovative projects to promote rights.

The programme has been designed for young people throughout Northern Ireland between the ages of 16-20. The programme has been accredited through the Open College Network, 5 credits at level 3 (equivalent to A Level standard). The first group of participants who have completed the course successfully are now in high demand by the statuary and voluntary sector to provide training for other young people from various communities and social backgrounds.

Through participation in this programme, learners not only gain a qualification but also an ability to advocate for and promote issues of local and global human rights, children's rights and social justice.