The Dorothy Cotton Institute Human Rights & Citizenship Education Program
Building Global Community for Human Rights Leadership
Dorothy Cotton Institute 2010 Our Vision:
The full realization of a just and peaceful beloved community in which all people understand, respect, protect, and exercise full human rights. Our Mission • To develop, nurture and train leaders for a global human rights movement. • To build a network and community of civil and human rights leadership • To explore, share, and promote practices that transform individuals and communities, opening new pathways to peace, justice, and healing.
DCI Values: the following values underlie our efforts:
•The inherent dignity, worth and spirit •Non-violence, peacemaking, of every person. reconciliation and love (agape) as means to change, and as ends. •Our shared humanity and relationship to all others (Ubuntu)* that give •The right and responsibility of all meaning to each individual life. people for engaged participation in the decisions that impact their lives. •The conscientious recognition of and respect for the interdependent web of •Diverse ways of knowing and all life. teaching—conceptual, practical,
•The development of self-awareness experiential, and cultural—that and relationship through reflection, honor past struggles, nurture the listening, dialogue, critical inquiry, and human spirit, and engage engaged participation with others. widespread participation.
* Ubuntu (Nguni language group) captures the notion that “my humanity is inextricably bound up in yours, and that what dehumanizes you inexorably dehumanizes me.” It encompasses generosity, hospitality, caring, compassion and a sense of belonging to a greater whole.
Why focus on human rights?
• Beyond the struggle for constitutionally guaranteed civil rights in the U.S., people are currently struggling for their full human rights, both in the U.S. and around the globe.
• We want to bring visibility, interconnection and strength to local, national and international work for human rights; while there is tremendous activity in the area of human rights, there is no “center” and no sense of a national or global “movement”. This creates a very unique role for the institute. Key DCI Components
Education, & Leadership Fellowships Development & Youth Think Tank Development
Beloved Community Education & Annual Visitors’ Story Center Gathering
Website
Human Rights Education is:
• A comprehensive lifelong process by which people at all levels of development and in all societies learn respect for the dignity of others and the means and methods of ensuring that respect in all societies.
• All learning that develops the knowledge, skills, and values of human rights.
The Citizenship Education Program (CEP) “The Best Kept Secret” of the Civil Rights Movement
• A critical, but often overlooked, component of the Civil Rights Movement’s overall organizing strategy. • CEP played a foundational role helping disenfranchised people recognize their own capacity, intelligence and power, and transform themselves from a stance of “victim” to full “citizenship.” • 1956-1961: Citizenship Schools began on Johns Islands, South Carolina and grew from there, supported by the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. • 1961-1970: CEP sponsorship moves to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and spreads throughout the South. Led by Dorothy Cotton, Andrew Young, Septima Clark, Bernice Robinson, and others.
Dorothy Cotton Institute 2010 Our Theory of Change
Take Action, recognition Learn about Leadership, & that human Civil & Human Inspire Others rights are Rights inspired to being denied learning that action to our rights are secure rights for self and codified in others treaties and Share laws Join a Strategies & Build Learning Mutual Beloved Community Community Support healing from of Peers oppression, connection regaining with others self-esteem & who care personal sharing "how about justice power things are" & Share Stories & "how things Share Stories & Aspirations for ought to be" Aspirations for Transformation Transformation Dorothy Cotton Institute 2010 Levels of Transformation
PERSONAL COMMUNITY • Move from the role of “victim” to • Build our community’s capacity to “agency” in one’s life work for social justice.
INTERPERSONAL INSTITUTIONAL • Practice non-violence to build a • Take collective action to transform Beloved Community, where all are institutions, policies and laws. treated with love, compassion, and respect, and their humanity and dignity is affirmed.
Dorothy Cotton Institute 2010
Core Principles: Affirming Human Dignity & Strengths
• Appreciate the life • Create a culture and climate experiences, knowledge, of belonging, safety and respect. strengths and talents of the students. • Foster transformations in • Affirm students' dignity. how students see themselves, their capacities • Hold high expectations for and their relationships to students’ ability to achieve each other. great things. • Tap strengths in students’ • Build caring, compassionate cultures and traditions. community.
Dorothy Cotton Institute 2010 Core Principles: Learning In and Through Collective Action
• Create a lived, shared • Intertwine classroom experience for students of learning with community- the vision for new society. based action; help students • Create deliberate grasp key concepts through experiential challenges to solving practical problems the values and norms of in concert with others. the status quo. • Focus curriculum on the practical problems, skills and topics of most interest to students; address the real problems students face in their lives.
Dorothy Cotton Institute 2010 Core Principles: Living Democracy in Classrooms & Programs
Dorothy Cotton Institute 2010 Citizenship Education Program Outline
• Building community • Creating a vision and the moral case for change for change
• Seeing how the • Preparing for status quo is leadership & effective action maintained
• Understanding that • Ongoing support we have rights and reinforcement
Dorothy Cotton Institute 2010
Building Community and the Moral Case for Change
Dorothy Cotton Institute 2010
Seeing How the Status Quo is Maintained
Dorothy Cotton Institute 2010 Understanding Our Rights
Dorothy Cotton Institute 2010 Creating a Vision for Change
Dorothy Cotton Institute 2010 Preparing for Leadership & Effective Action
• Imagine Change— • Commit to action & What is your goal? mutual support • What role can you play? • Mobilize vigils, walks, What can you do to demonstrations change the situation? • Use media, petitions, • Assess risks—pushback, write letters & articles consequences, violence? • Assert your rights & • Plan Civic Engagement & demands effectively Social Action • Use personal power, • Teach people about their inclusion, & influence rights to gain access & • Organize alliances, promote justice for all coalitions, & teams
Dorothy Cotton Institute 2010
Ongoing Support & Movement Building
Dorothy Cotton Institute 2010 • Helping to meet future • Strategies to get others training needs involved • Supporting school— • Movement building community teams • Documentation – Share what people are – What impact is HR learning together & Education having from each other • on students? – Trouble-shooting • on teaching staff? • Generating Ideas for – How is the community – Building democratic benefitting? classrooms & programs – What is working best? – Innovative school – • Build the knowledge base. community partnerships Dorothy Cotton Institute 2010