Preveza 'Human Rights Sunrise' Event

 

A SUCCESSFUL FINAL EVENT ON HURISU PROGRAMME

An Action Day on Human Rights, an innovative and creative presentation which took place in Theophanios Art Room on the 1st of April 2011, in Preveza was the Greek final event of the 2-year European Programme with the general title ‘HuRiSu’ –Human Rights Sunrise – and with the participation of Secondary school teachers and pupils of Preveza. 

The content of the Programme

This programme’s main aim was to make European Youth and European citizens sensitive and well informed on Human Rights issues .The main organizers of this event were the Region of Epirus\Regional Unit of Preveza (former Prefecture of Preveza) and the NGO A.N.C.E. (a Network for the support of the less privileged) with the cooperation of the Head Office of Preveza's Secondary Schools, teachers and pupils of secondary schools and Art groups of the city. Representatives of the Programme partner institutions from Athens, Serbia, Italy and Spain also took part in the final event and actively contributed to its success.

As part of the programme each partner had to present a symbolic place where fundamental Human Rights were violated such as the Right to Life, Right to Freedom or the right to Self–independence. Kriopigi was selected as the symbolic place of Preveza. It is a small village where during the second world war the Germans took as hostages 28 innocent farmers and later 23 of them were executed without any other reason but revenge. One of the main Targets and the final product of the HuRiSu Programme was the creation of a board game which was entirely based on Human Rights, human rights violations and the symbolic places of the partner cities. This Board Game was used in a school competition and a pupil who was the winner will go to Perugia –Italy to take part in the programme's final event there. The game will also be used as a useful teaching tool in order to make pupils, from all partner cities, become more sensitive in the field of Human Rights.

 

The event

The event started with the song ‘Imagine’ sung by the 4thGymnasio Choir as a warm welcome to all participants and partners. Then the welcome speech by the Head of the R.U. of Preveza, Mr. Stratos Ioannou, followed.

Mr. Ioannou outlined the value of the implementation of such programmes which make citizens sensitive and well informed of Human Rights.
"Respect to Human Dignity, abolition of discriminations, equality, solidarity, respect to minority groups rights, combating poverty are all values that this project is trying to present so that all citizens are well aware of. The Regional Unit of Preveza took the initiative to actively support this project, giving thus the chance to teachers and pupils to participate in creative collaboration and actions along with our partner friends from Athens, Italy, Spain and Serbia. The main aim of this programme was the promotion of inter-cultural dialogue making our youth sensitive and well informed on the importance of the European Citizenship and the common European Values on which European Union is based.
More specifically, the whole programme achieved the active participation of teachers and pupils as well as the wider public in interactive activities in the field of Human Rights. Issues such as Peace, education, inter-cultural dialogue, human rights violations in the 20th century were some of the issues raised and discussed as part of it. The Region of Epirus/R.U.of Preveza warmly supports initiative and action promoting these values, which enrich local cultural life, giving the chance to young people to come in contact with their European fellow citizens and exchange experience and ideas in an effective way."

Mr. Ioannou finally congratulated all the participants who worked hard in this project.

Later, the people who were the organizing committee of the event and the implementation of activities, Mr.Thanasis Kitsantas as the Regional Unit's coordinator, Mrs. Barbara Zadraveli and Mrs. Helen Synesiou as experts and educational activities coordinators, Mrs. Georgia Bekridakis of the NGO A.N.C.E as Project Coordinator, presented in more details all the activities which took place during the two years of the HuRiSu project.

The interesting lectures by the Social Worker and Psychologist Mrs. Christina Christidou with the general title ‘Education of Human Rights in the school context’ and Mrs. Maria Bliati with the title ‘Ombudsman and the Rights of children in education’ followed.

The rest of the day was full of remarkable activities starting with the superb dance and drama performance involving all the languages of the project partners under the artistic guidance of the ‘Societa dello spettacolo’ from Perugia and with participants pupils from all partners of the HuRiSu Project The performance achieved to promote the message of respect to human rights in an authentic and innovative way. Experiential workshops of artistic expression and an interesting workshop discussing ways of preventing violations of children's rights followed.

The event came to the end after various other activities such as cinema films – Greek and international productions – pupils' drama groups –the 1st Lykeon presented the Gaza's Monologues – different young music groups of the city which were all attended by a numerous enthusiastic audience. On a parallel basis there was an exhibition of pictures and drawings from children from the Gaza region and also artwork of pupils from Preveza related to the theme of human rights.


The organizers finally thanked all the participants who successfully contributed to that superb final event of the HuRiSu Project.

"With the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union"

"This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. 
This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein."