Evaluation of the International Human Rights Training Program Curriculum:
Facilitators’ Perspectives on Human Rights Education Activities

Background Information
   Organization
   Focus of the Assignment: the IHRTP 2002
   Participants
   Curriculum
Research Question
Data Collection Instruments
Methodology
   Data Analysis
Analysis of Relevant Streams
   Stream 1
   Stream 5
   Stream 6
   Stream 8
What did not go Well?
Conclusions
Appendix A: Facilitator Questionnaires
Appendix B: “What did not go Well?”

The Canadian Human Rights Foundation (CHRF) is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation dedicated to the defense and promotion of human rights through education, in Canada and around the world. 

The CHRF was established in 1967 by a group of Canadian jurists, scholars and human rights advocates, among them the late John P. Humphrey, one of the drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These pioneers were committed to bringing human rights to the forefront of the Canadian experience, through educational programmes. 

Today, the CHRF remains faithful to its initial mandate and fulfills its mission through programs which support the development of pluralistic and democratic civil societies. Our educational programs focus on human rights law and public education techniques and strategies. They contribute to the creation and consolidation of networks of human rights defenders, in Canada and around the world. 

Our main activities include an annual International Human Rights Training Program(IHRTP), Regional Programs in Africa, Asia and Central and Eastern Europe, as well as training programs for National Institutions in developing countries (www.chrf.ca).

The 23rd annual IHRTP took place at John Abbott College, in the town of Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Québec, from June 9 to June 28. Held every summer for the last 22 years, this intensive course is an intermediate level program, primarily intended for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs) involved in the advancement of human rights. The program uses a participant-centered approach that encourages reciprocal learning through an exchange of experiences among participants, facilitators and resource persons.

The goal of the IHRTP is to strengthen the capacity of human rights organizations to undertake human rights education efforts (e.g., training, awareness campaigns, information dissemination, and advocacy) aimed at building a universal culture of human rights.

The objectives of the IHRTP are to enable participants to:

The curriculum design model of the IHRTP is based on principles of adult experiential learning. The basic assumption is that much of the content will come from the participants and that the program will serve as a framework for drawing out this content. Participants and facilitators commit themselves to engage in a process of mutual teaching and learning. The emphasis is on practical application and on the development of strategies for future action where ontinued reflection and evaluation are central to the learning process.

The 2002 IHRTP brought together:

Participants were almost equally divided by gender (69 women and 49 men) with eighty-eight (88) English-speakers and thirty (30) French-speakers.

Participants are divided into eight groups of approximately 15 members for most of the program. There are two French and six English language groups. The guiding principle in group composition is maximum diversity in terms of professional background, type of organization, and country of origin while at the same time respecting a gender balance. Each group is assigned a facilitator whose role is to provide guidance in achieving the objectives of the IHRTP as the participants work through all activities. Facilitators are chosen for their ability to effectively support the learning process, their knowledge of human rights and their experience with adult education techniques. At various points during the IHRTP, the eight working groups are combined or divided into different groupings to further promote exchange of experiences and networking among the participants.

The curriculum is divided into 8 Streams, each having its own sub-objectives:

Stream 1: Introductions

Stream 1 lays the foundations for the IHRTP by providing the opportunity for participants to clearly articulate their own needs and experiences at the personal, organizational and regional levels. It also allows them to understand the context of other members of their working group and prepares them to act as a support and resource for one another throughout the duration of the program.

Stream 2: Starting From Where we Are

In Stream 2 participants begin to share their professional as well as personal human rights experiences in order to gain a better understanding of the various contexts in which human rights work takes place in different societies.

This Stream is also the starting point for discussions and reflection on fundamental concepts of human rights. Participants explore the role that personal values play in how human rights workers perceive their situations and carry out their work. This shared understanding of concepts will help clarify personal issues of human rights work.

In Stream 2, participants are introduced to the individual projects component of the IHRTP, where each participant develops a human rights education-related initiative to be implemented upon return to their home countries.

Stream 3: Building a Global Culture of Human Rights

In Stream 3, participants begin to explore the potential of human rights education (HRE) as a tool for global change. The UN Decade for HRE defines human rights education as "...training, dissemination and information efforts aimed at the building of a universal culture of human rights through the imparting of knowledge and skills and the moulding of attitudes and which are directed to:

a)       The strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms;

b)       The full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity;

c)       The promotion of understanding, tolerance, gender equality and friendship among all nations, indigenous peoples and racial, national, ethnic, religious and linguistic groups;

d)       The enabling of all persons to participate effectively in a free society;

e)       The furtherance of the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace."

Throughout the IHRTP participants will continue to reflect on how human rights education can increase the effectiveness of their work. Participants explore why a participatory approach is appropriate for human rights training.

The starting point for human rights education is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The UDHR has symbolic, moral and practical significance as the constitution of the whole human rights movement, and its simplicity of language and vision are accessible to people of all ages and conditions.

Stream 4: Seeking Common Ground

In Stream 4, participants are encouraged to critically reflect on their personal understanding of human rights by examining personal values systems which reflect cultural and regional origins. Participants will also explore the positive and negative effects of diversity on human interactions. Through discussions, the opposing notions of universality and cultural relativity of rights are analyzed. Participants will also reflect on human dignity as the foundation of all human rights.

Stream 5: The Global Human Rights Context

Stream 5 engages participants in discussion on the global challenges to their human rights work. Participants begin by examining the economic, social/cultural and political factors influencing the global human rights context.

Stream 6: Human Rights Standards and Mechanisms

Participants explore the development of international human rights standards and the role of the UN human rights system in addressing these challenges.

The indivisibility and interdependence of human rights instruments and covenants is a fundamental concept of human rights work. In order to strengthen capacity, participants practice using the instruments and covenants simultaneously in analyzing case studies on Economic, Social and Cultural rights, women and children's rights and minority rights.

Stream 7: Monitoring and Advocacy

In Stream 7, participants will develop practical skills in human rights fact-finding, reporting and developing an advocacy plan. Effective monitoring can provide crucial information and analysis that will support other functions of an organization.

A fact-finding mission includes an analysis of the data gathered to

determine whether a human rights violation has indeed been committed. Checking if governmental systems, policies and actions are in compliance with local and international standards of human rights will help deepen participants’ understanding of  and skills in using human rights instruments.

Stream 8: Educational Evaluation

In Stream 8, participants explore the essential role and practical benefits of evaluation in their HRE work. They will examine how to develop and carry out an evaluation process (i.e., the who, what, when, why, and how of evaluation).

Facilitators play a crucial role in the delivery of this program. In addition to explaining instructions clearly and summarizing discussions, facilitators are expected to:

Balancing the needs of individuals and the group is a very challenging task. Facilitators may decide to adapt planned activities to suit language/knowledge skills of participants in order to make the curriculum accessible. In past years, facilitators have informally discussed these adaptations during debriefing sessions. Although the CHRF staff made note of these adaptations, facilitators were never asked to formally document them for future use.  This assignment addresses that need.

The  reason for investigating adaptations to the curriculum this is to evaluate the activities of the IHRTP curriculum. Are the activities being delivered as designed? If not, why? This feedback is important as the CHRF invests great time in designing and developing activities for the IHRTP. Analyzing the collected data will help give the CHRF a better sense of how activities were received by facilitators and participants. For example, if a majority of facilitators adapt a particular activity for valid reasons, then the CHRF needs to review/revise it for the next session of the IHRTP, possibly resulting in a change of instructions, process, or sequencing. This pilot use of facilitator questionnaire will help provide the necessary information in order to make these decisions. 

Adopting either a pure quantitative or pure qualitative approach to this assignment is not feasible. Focusing only on a quantitative approach severely limits the feedback that participants can offer. In an early message sent to the course listserv, I shared my opinion that the quantitative approach was seemingly reductionist in nature when working in HRE where people’s experiences and emotions are key.

On the other hand, qualitative approaches are more time consuming and take a great amount of resources to collect/analyze data. For example, if feedback from all 120 participants of the IHRTP curriculum were necessary, it would easily take me the whole duration of the program (3 weeks) to collect data, likely another 3 weeks to code the data, with another few weeks to start analysis. For practical reasons this cannot be done; it’s not efficient with the resources that are available. Another possibility would be to interview facilitators, but due to the time constraints of the program, it is difficult to do this. Facilitators are already working long days and are generally very fatigued when classes end at 5:00. Daily debriefing sessions typically last over one hour, meaning that their day is at least 10 hours long.

For data collection in this situation, a complementary combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches is most useful. The quantitative approach can offer some quick information in the form of descriptive statistics. Adding a qualitative aspect can help explain these statistics. Based on limited resources, the most convenient technique would be to follow the current questionnaire-based assessment used by the CHRF and create a new instrument for use specifically with facilitators. Questions that were included in questionnaires (See Appendix A):

• Were any of the activities in this Stream adapted?
• If so, how were these activities adapted? (e.g., changed sequencing of instructions, used flip-chart paper to take notes instead of workbooks)
• Why were activities adapted? (e.g., too complicated, did not fit the needs of the group)
• What generally went well during the Stream? (e.g., time management, activities, participant reaction to curriculum)
• What generally did not go well during the Stream? (e.g., time management, activities, participant reaction to curriculum)
• How can improvements be made to the curriculum to better address the needs of participants?

Evaluation questionnaires were delivered to each class the morning they were to be administered.  At the end of each Stream, participants were asked to fill out evaluation forms. This was an opportune moment for facilitators to model behaviour for participants as they responded to their own questionnaire. When all questionnaires were completed, facilitators collected them and placed them in an envelope and returned them to me either at the end of the day or the next morning.

Using this process, sixty-three (63) completed questionnaires were collected from facilitators. While there are usually eight facilitators working at the IHRTP, this year saw the introduction of a co-facilitator in one of the classes for Streams 1 through 5. The average return rate for facilitators’ questionnaires was ninety-one percent (91%) at the conclusion of the IHRTP (See Table 1). The small size of the group should have ensured a return rate of 100%, but unfortunately  there was a lack of diligence in following up with facilitators.

The percentages presented throughout the document are based only on persons who responded to the question under discussion, unless otherwise indicated.

In their “End of Stream” questionnaires, facilitators were asked which/how/why activities were adapted, what went well during the day and what did not go well during the day. In this section the activities that were adapted by more than sixty percent (60%) of facilitators will be presented, as well as reasons why they were adapted.   

When asked why activities in this Stream were adapted, facilitators answered:

Based on these open-ended comments and suggestions from facilitators, the CHRF will need to review the activities and look to make them more participatory and be more conscious of the day’s events so that time is not such a constraint for participants on the first day.

When asked why activities in this Stream were adapted, facilitators answered:

• To suit the flow of the sessions; avoid repetition.
• Didn't have time to do both.
• Why? Time management.
• Discussed with group before start - groups' choice.

Based on these open-ended comments and suggestions from facilitators, the CHRF will need to review the activities and ensure that this activity is not repetitive of previous activities and to work on the sequencing of the Stream’s activities.

When asked why activities in this Stream were adapted, a facilitator answered:

There were not many reasons given for why this activity was changed, but the concrete  suggestions for improving the activity that this facilitator made were very useful and will likely be implemented in next year’s curriculum.

When asked why activities in this Stream were adapted, facilitators answered:

When facilitators were asked for open comments related to these activities, time seemed to be an issue, as well as the vocabulary used in the texts. Time is a perennial challenge for the IHRTP curriculum, a constant balance between what should be covered vs. what can be covered. In recent years, and effort was been made to increase time given to activities, but the tension sill exists. The CHRF has also attempted to simplify the language of the materials, but more work needs to be done on this issue.

On each “End of Stream” questionnaire, facilitators were asked the open-ended question, “What generally did not go well during the Stream? (e.g., time management, activities, participant reaction to curriculum).” Responses related primarily to time constraints and language issues (See Appendix B). With this data, the CHRF will know to focus on these elements of the curriculum during its discussions on the upcoming session of the IHRTP 2003.

The data collected for this assignment will be very valuable for future use when improving the curriculum for the 2003 IHRTP. In future versions of these evaluation instruments, questions will need to be more targeted in order to elicit more useful information. With the information provided by facilitators, the CHRF can now focus on specific activities that need reviewing and revising. As a first attempt at formally evaluating the curriculum from the perspective of facilitators, the process was encouraging.

Facilitators’ Stream 1 Evaluation - IHRTP 2002

1.      Were any of the activities in this Stream adapted?

2.      If so, how were these activities adapted? (e.g., changed sequencing of instructions, used flip-chart paper to take notes instead of workbooks)

3.      Why were activities adapted? (e.g., too complicated, did not fit the needs of the group)

4.      What generally went well during the Stream? (e.g., time management, activities, participant reaction to curriculum)

5.      What generally did not go well during the Stream? (e.g., time management, activities, participant reaction to curriculum)

6.      How can improvements be made to the curriculum to better address the needs of participants?

Facilitators’ Stream 2 Evaluation - IHRTP 2002

1.      Were any of the activities in this Stream adapted?

2.      If so, how were these activities adapted? (e.g., changed sequencing of instructions, used flip-chart paper to take notes instead of workbooks)

3.      Why were activities adapted? (e.g., too complicated, did not fit the needs of the group)

4.      What generally went well during the Stream? (e.g., time management, activities, participant reaction to curriculum)

5.      What generally did not go well during the Stream? (e.g., time management, activities, participant reaction to curriculum)

6.      How can improvements be made to the curriculum to better address the needs of participants?

Facilitators’ Stream 3 Evaluation - IHRTP 2002

1.      Were any of the activities in this Stream adapted?

2.      If so, how were these activities adapted? (e.g., changed sequencing of instructions, used flip-chart paper to take notes instead of workbooks)

3.      Why were activities adapted? (e.g., too complicated, did not fit the needs of the group)

4.      What generally went well during the Stream? (e.g., time management, activities, participant reaction to curriculum)

5.      What generally did not go well during the Stream? (e.g., time management, activities, participant reaction to curriculum)

6.      How can improvements be made to the curriculum to better address the needs of participants?

Facilitators’ Stream 4 Evaluation - IHRTP 2002

1.      Were any of the activities in this Stream adapted?

2.      If so, how were these activities adapted? (e.g., changed sequencing of instructions, used flip-chart paper to take notes instead of workbooks)

3.      Why were activities adapted? (e.g., too complicated, did not fit the needs of the group)

4.      What generally went well during the Stream? (e.g., time management, activities, participant reaction to curriculum)

5.      What generally did not go well during the Stream? (e.g., time management, activities, participant reaction to curriculum)

6.      How can improvements be made to the curriculum to better address the needs of participants?

Facilitators’ Stream 5 Evaluation - IHRTP 2002

1.      Were any of the activities in this Stream adapted?

2.      If so, how were these activities adapted? (e.g., changed sequencing of instructions, used flip-chart paper to take notes instead of workbooks)

3.      Why were activities adapted? (e.g., too complicated, did not fit the needs of the group)

4.      What generally went well during the Stream? (e.g., time management, activities, participant reaction to curriculum)

5.      What generally did not go well during the Stream? (e.g., time management, activities, participant reaction to curriculum)

6.      How can improvements be made to the curriculum to better address the needs of participants?

Facilitators’ Stream 6 Evaluation - IHRTP 2002

1.      Were any of the activities in this Stream adapted?

2.      If so, how were these activities adapted? (e.g., changed sequencing of instructions, used flip-chart paper to take notes instead of workbooks)

3.      Why were activities adapted? (e.g., too complicated, did not fit the needs of the group)

4.      What generally went well during the Stream? (e.g., time management, activities, participant reaction to curriculum)

5.      What generally did not go well during the Stream? (e.g., time management, activities, participant reaction to curriculum)

6.      How can improvements be made to the curriculum to better address the needs of participants?

Facilitators’ Stream 7 Evaluation - IHRTP 2002

1.      Were any of the activities in this Stream adapted?

2.      If so, how were these activities adapted? (e.g., changed sequencing of instructions, used flip-chart paper to take notes instead of workbooks)

3.      Why were activities adapted? (e.g., too complicated, did not fit the needs of the group)

4.      What generally went well during the Stream? (e.g., time management, activities, participant reaction to curriculum)

5.      What generally did not go well during the Stream? (e.g., time management, activities, participant reaction to curriculum)

6.      How can improvements be made to the curriculum to better address the needs of participants?

Facilitators’ Stream 8 Evaluation - IHRTP 2002

1.      Were any of the activities in this Stream adapted?

2.      If so, how were these activities adapted? (e.g., changed sequencing of instructions, used flip-chart paper to take notes instead of workbooks)

3.      Why were activities adapted? (e.g., too complicated, did not fit the needs of the group)

4.      What generally went well during the Stream? (e.g., time management, activities, participant reaction to curriculum)

5.      What generally did not go well during the Stream? (e.g., time management, activities, participant reaction to curriculum)

6.      How can improvements be made to the curriculum to better address the needs of participants?

Stream 1

• Participant flow during wall of fame exercise.  I think we need to improve this.
• Time management - we had to go over by about 15 minutes but the participants were happy since we covered everything.
• Participants requested more group intros - spiral/content time was reduced.
• time management 
• Feedback a été mentionné lors des besoins et ressources - mais pas eu le temps de parler de feedback.  Pas eu le temps de faire un debriefing - seulement evaluation ecrite individuelle. (Feedback was mentioned in terms of needs and resources – but no time to talk about feedback. No time to do a debriefing – only the written evaluation.)

Stream 2

• time management - I felt contrained while facilitating activity 1 of Unit 2.  Following the questions as they were suggested restricted my ability to let the discussions flow.
• Time and content in PM - my folks were tired.
• À * gestion du temps - relate plus haut - la discussion en petits groupes sur "les droits de la personne dans votre société" à été lente à démarrer.  Sur les principes - le contenu des presentations était un peu abstrait - un participant a critiqué cela dans son évaluation en soulignant que la conceptualisation des principes était "hors des réalités vécues et historiques" (In terms of time management – mentioned above – the discussion in small groups on “the rights of people in your society” was slow to start. On the principles – the content of presentations was a bit abstract – one participant critiqued that in his evaluation saying that the conceptualization of principles was “beyond our lived expereience and history”)
• Time management but was able to catch up.

Stream 3

• Debate * fishbowl took a little longer squeezed presentation briefing time - although 5-10 minutes seemed sufficient for briefing.
• Fishbowl not very dynamic - I usually use fishbowl for role plays with more built-in tension.  Group used it okay but concluded with discussion about many different ways fishbowls had been used. (at least 4 participants had used it before.
• time - organisation of * task; understanding procedures (debate and fishbowl - written instructions are unclear and confusing.

Stream 4

• time; language/reading
• Insufficient time for discussion; group discussions start slowly, need to be primed.
• Time management.

Stream 5

• Time management - Participants were tired from weekend activities and Monday was a particularly ** day.
• Time management Monday; language in text
• Time management
• Activities and presentations did not address some of the objectives.
• Participants had hard time connecting HRE response, activities, approaches re: globalization - partly a group dynamics question - difficulty with English, comfort with participatory environment, deferential attitudes, complexity of topic.

Stream 6

• Pour ce qui de temps accordé pour l'examen des 5 principaux instruments, il a été jugé insuffisant.  De plus, l'étude de comparative avec des instruments régionaux a fait default. (For the time given to analyzing the five international instruments, it was insufficient. In addition, the comparison with regional instruments was lacking.)
• Time management
• Time issues with the case studies and presentations.

Stream 7

• Time pressures were often disruptive at times.
• Participant reaction to 2 (see Q4). Advocacy campaign - we lost too much time to CIDA and participants were tired by the time we got around to it.
• While time crush can be a good incentive for small group work (and it did produce fun) the large # of group members (25) was not conducive to going deeper into the issues.
• TIME - too long in regional group - CEE/CA too large a group for activities.
• Le temps était insuffisant.

Stream 8

• Les participants ont déploré le peu de temps accordé à ce courant. (The participants were upset at the time given to this Stream.)
• Time constraints.  Thursday was especially intense, as was Wednesday.