In Canada, we work extensively with children and young people to raise awareness about the values underlying human rights: inclusion, diversity, participation, non-discrimination and gender equality. We see promoting these values as important for creating inclusive and democratic societies. Human rights education takes place at all ages. It begins with children’s understanding of what inclusion means to them in everyday life, at school, on the playground, in their families, in their communities. It is therefore a matter of building, from a very young age, all this learning and understanding of values.
It is also about developing commitment, which grows progressively in children and young people, so that they become involved in their society, becoming themselves agents of change and leaders when the time comes to build those interactions. This seems particularly important in communities with great diversity. Increasingly, the reality of every country in the world, including Canada, is tremendous diversity.
How do we achieve that mutual understanding? We feel that the values underlying human rights are fundamental. As I have just said, it is important to engage children and young people in those processes as agents of change.
We are now reaching more than 100,000 children in Canada. We started with children aged 6 to 12 and we are now working with teenagers. Right now, we are working to promote those values among refugee children arriving in Canada from a number of countries around the world, as well as to develop relationships within indigenous communities.
I think we have a lot of things to build together, including ties and connections.