Chhattisgarh Project

To support the move towards democratic (community) policing CHRI has closely associated with two Community Resource Centres at academic institutions. The centres are Hidyatullah National Law University (HNLU), Raipur and Kalyan College, Durg.

At the same time, various other agencies such as Human Rights Commission, Social Work School at Bhilai, non-governmental organisations and other autonomous bodies have taken interest over the past few years to implement human rights education. As a part of these same efforts several states have initiated a human rights education curriculum for schools. The NCERT has also prepared a human rights curriculum for schools.

This we felt was a crucial time and area that CHRI could intervene, to come forward and understand the human rights education requirements and the scope to introduce the curricula by initiating training of teachers in Human Rights Education. It is with this objective that the Chhattisgarh State Human Rights Commission, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Hidayatullah National Law School, and Kalyan College, took this opportunity to open a dialogue with other state actors on the issue of human rights education for schools in Chhattisgarh. As a first step, only secondary schools of two districts were invited to give their inputs on the issue. Gradually this initiative will be broadened to cover other schools in the State.

This initiative began with two Human Rights Education Consultation Programmes at the Hidayatullah National Law University (HNLU), Raipur and Kalyan College, Durg, held on the 30th September and 1st October 2004, respectively. This was the first phase - having the main objective of initiating Human Rights Education in schools, i.e. holding a consultation meeting with principals of various schools of the area on the possibility of having Human rights education.

• To discuss the need for human rights education in school curriculum.
• To discuss ways of implementing formal human rights education in schools.
• To discuss and identify the scope of training of teachers in human rights.
• To impart HRE training to teachers who will then further impart it to children.

The programme has been divided into various stages. The September 30th and October 1st 2004, consultation meetings involved the principals of schools from the two districts of Raipur and Durg. The next phase of the programme involved training of teachers from the respective schools. Since January 05, HNLU and Kalyan College have taken considerable interest in promoting human rights education. Libraries at the two establishments are stocked with CHRI publications and the contact details of various human rights groups, government institutions and other relevant organisations are made available to staff, students and visitors.

Through the ongoing interactions with the two establishments, the aim is to build a Community Resource Centres to develop human rights centres in their districts. The students of the two resource centres and School of Social Work, Bhilai engage with CHRI in research, documentation and developing legal literacy content. The students are also encouraged to intern with CHRI, Raipur. Recently in the year 2005 the students from Kalyan College, Bhilai and School of Social Work, Bhilai contributed to CHRI's evaluation of Maana Community policing project. They undertook the field research under Mr. M.D.Asthana.