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Conference on Student Mobility and Recognition of Study Periods Abroad Western Balkans - EU, 11. - 12. October 2010, Ljubljana, Slovenia

International Scientific Conference Slovene Language in Contact – Modern Directions of Multilingual and Minority Education (Koper, 10th–11th September 2010)

South Eastern European Mountain Research & Global Change Strategy Development and Networking Conference, Timisoara, Romania, 26-29 August 2010

ASO Ljubljana & Slovenia & SEE @ ACUNS Annual Meeting 2010 in Vienna

Understanding Human Rights at Regional Level; A Comparison of Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania

Start Date: June 2009

Project Duration: 8 months

Summary:

This project proposal is devoted to discuss the good experiences of local institutions and mechanisms related to the understanding of human rights and democracy. The role of national institutions, civil society sector in the respective countries, their understanding of Human Rights and Democracy and at the same time their good practical examples in the field of human rights, i.e. relevant human rights cases and materials will be the main topic of this project. Different literature on human rights and democracy produced in this respect in the three above mentioned countries will be of a particular importance to the purposes of this project. While there is a large number of studies on the international level related to the topic, studies on national practices are missing and will have a good impact on implementation of human rights. The results of this project can serve to improve the capacity of national institutions on implementation of human rights. The project will produce additional training material based on the practices of above mentioned countries. This can serve as a good step forward since the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Kosovo has decided to translate the most recent version of the manual Understanding Human Rights, edited by ETC Graz on behalf of the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in order to disseminate it to schools in Kosova! This project will go further producing materials on local and regional perspectives accompanied by different cases from the practice as well as examples form the literature that has been produced in the field of human rights in Albanian language. Since the three countries included in research are more or less in the same level of implementation of Human Rights, the materials produced as part of this project can serve as a tool for educators and institutions to develop their Human Rights Education. Since there are a large number of studies and manuals in the field of human rights at the International level, this is also the particularity and innovation of the research as the existing literature has largely been written by foreign experts, who were part of those missions or studied them as part of research done from the outside. The purpose of the project is to give young researches a voice and the opportunity to do their own research in order to test their own hypothesis. It will therefore contribute to the objective of increasing local research capacity and creating ownership for the research results in the countries of the region.

Coordinator:

European Training and Research Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (ETC) Graz, Austria, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Benedek

Project Partners:

University of Prishtina, Human Rights Centre, Kosovo, Valon Murati/Qerkin Berisha

South-East European University in Tetovo (SEEU), Human Rights Centre, FYR of Macedonia, Besa Arifi Albanian

Centre for Human Rights, Human Rights Centre, Albania, Kozara Kati