Restore the balance - Peace and human rights

The idea of this method is to raise awareness about the inequalities in the world, about the human rights violations in countries outside the "first world" and how are our everyday actions connected to them. Other than raising awareness, the aim is also to empower participants to think of solutions, of own actions that can be a small step torwards helping some of these situations.

Wars marked the Western history and influenced the development of its culture and consciousness – after the World War II, the need of strong documents and organizations promoting human rights was clear. And it is because of this violent history that „the West“ has recorded only minor local wars over the last seventy years (on the Balkans and in Ukraine). Nonetheless, Western countries continued to participate economically or militarily in violating basic human rights or ignoring known violation in the rest of the world. At the same time, most Westerners are not aware of these violations or the connection of these violations with their daily lives and the responsibility they bear. The idea behind this method is to serve as an introduction to raising awareness of this issue.

1. Photo sharing and instructions (5 min)
2. Individual work (10 min)
3. Discovering the whole photo and reflection (10 min)
4. Designing activities in pairs that could encourage change (15 min)
5. Presentation of activities (10 min)
6. Planning implementation  (10 min)

printed out pictures

printed out pictures

In the middle part of the workshop participants are trying to "finish" the picture (10 min). After 10 minutes facilitator asks them to uncover the hiden part of the picture, and asks for their opinions - what do they see, and what are the photos about. Why did the artist make these photos, and what are they saying about the Western world? How are we responsible for what the photos show us? Can we do something to restore the balance in this photo (10 min)? Participants are asked to work in pair and think of a small activities that could help the analized situation (15 min). In the end participants are presenting the activities/ideas (10 min)

Developing a commitment plan - discussing how committed they are to make a change and how they can help each other.