Guyana lauded for progress in human rights education Stabroek News December 12, 2000 Half way through the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education only a few countries have developed effective national strategies for human rights education, according to UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan. A commemoration of International Human Rights Day yesterday at the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA), Georgetown, saw a number of human rights activists pleading for a more tolerant and peaceful world. GHRA Programmes Co-Ordinator, Merle Mendonca, celebrated the progress made with human rights education in Guyana citing the Human Rights Education (HRE) for Citizenship course introduced by the government as a sign of solid development. "A successful HRE programme in the school system," she explained, "will ensure that the human rights values of equality, tolerance, democracy, freedom and human dignity will be as important to the next generation of adults, as fame, wealth, success and winning are to the present generation." She pressed the need for more focused rights-based development of the country, guided by "the norms and values embodied in the range of international human rights standards," arguing that development policies should be tailored to the "needs of individual sectors of vulnerable people such as women, indigenous people, detainees, people with disabilities, children and HIV/AIDS sufferers. "It is clearly imperative that human rights training be an established part of both education and the training of all civil servants. In this way, the current generation of decision-makers can start to give real meaning to human rights as the basis for a just, peaceful and developed society." Rosana Narine of Amnesty International Guyana described human rights atrocities across the globe concentrating on the sexual and physical abuse of children. "Amnesty International is calling on governments around the world to publicly condemn the torture of children whenever it occurs, investigate all allegations of torture, ensure it is expressly prohibited in law and that torturers are brought to justice." She stated that "the Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world," but lamented the fact that "governments continue to fail to live up to the principles and commitments it contains." Rights of Children representative, Nalini Smith, urged Guyana's political parties to honour their pledges to a non-racist election and asked them to "encourage their supporters and all others to isolate themselves from all racial discrimination. Julie Lewis, the President of the Guyana Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities and Commissioner of the National Commission on Disabilities, spoke of the lack of tolerance of the disabled in Guyanese society and reminded the public that disability can afflict anyone. "Enjoying our rights doesn't come as easily to us [the disabled] yet whether we are disabled or not our rights are the same. The fact that disability can happen to anybody should mean that society should treat the disabled as equal human beings." Follow the goings-on in Guyana in Guyana Today