Activity 01: Human Rights Issues in the Middle East
Website Presentation
Using the example of the Middle East this Edukit will explore the issues of human rights by working in groups to create either a website with several pages, or a series of posters representing the content of a website. This is not an activity to learn how to create a website. If the students know how to create web pages and want to present their final work on a computer in a website, they may. For those who do not have the technological knowledge to create web pages they can produce a series of posters that will have the same content, photographs, or graphics that they would been on the Internet.
Using the content in this Edukit, the links, and the directions to search the Internet, the students will find the facts they need to produce the content including written work, graphics, maps, and photographs they can use to complete their project.
Download the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from the Teacher Background Material part of this Edukit and make it available to the students with explanation so that they know exactly what human rights are. Emphasise that human rights relate to the way people can live their daily lives and they are not abstractions. Using this framework, students will be able to identify and discuss issues of human rights violations with clarity.
Organizing the Groups
There are many different ways to organize the groups working on the project. Every participant must have a responsibility and finish the activities they have agreed to complete. The participants could accept a page that they will complete including content and graphic design, or each student could identify what they do well and contribute more in that area. For example there may be a student who is good at finding photographs on the Internet, down loading them, printing them, and writing the descriptions. Another student may draw well, and another two can divide the research and writing for the posters or web pages.
Everyone should first agree on what each member of the team is doing, and what the project will look like over all. There must be an agreement about when the work is done; allowing extra time to work out problems before the activity has to be displayed.
There must be close cooperation between all those in the group to successfully finish this activity because those who are completing the research have to clearly tell those working on the graphics what is needed and where they are to be placed in the project. Those providing the graphics need to let the writer know when there are no graphics for a part of the content.
Focus
These questions will help organise the work that is presented in this activity:
• Where is the Middle East?
• How did the Middle East become a land with different ethnic groups?
• What were the causes of the conflicts between the people of the Middle East?
• What kind of human rights were violated in Occupied Territories? Remember to use some examples.
• What was the reaction of the international community to the violations of human rights in the Middle East?
• Should there have been a different international reaction by the world to what was happening in the Middle East?
• How did the Declaration of Human Rights help the people in places like the Gaza Strip or the West Bank?
• What would you do if you faced the problems of the people you are presenting in this activity?
As a group the participants must decide what questions will be answered on each web page or poster. Divide up the tasks that have to be done. Once the students have started to work on this activity remember to keep talking to the others who are in their group, especially if they realise there has to be another web page or poster.
Once the students’ posters or web pages have been completed they will be posted and shared with the rest of their class. The projects will be discussed and then each person will write a review of what other groups have done.
