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About this course

Before you start, learn more about group discussions, online security and how to navigate this course

Amnesty International’s online courses are created by an international team of human rights educators, researchers, campaigners and activists to equip learners worldwide with the knowledge and skills to take action for human rights.

This course is designed to take approximately 6 hours to complete. If you have less time – choose the content and activities that mean the most to you.

The course is designed for participatory learning, which means we all learn together through collaborative activities and discussions. That doesn’t mean you can’t learn from the course without active participation, but your experience – and the experience of others – will be enhanced the more you interact with your peers and the activities.

Many pages in the course include discussions, where you can share your thoughts about the content or activity on that page. Please use these to enhance your learning, and the learning of others. Remember to stick to the discussion guidelines and actively maintain them.

Discussions

To make this an enjoyable, positive and constructive experience for all, participants are required to follow the code of conduct and be respectful. Abusive and disrespectful communications will be removed. You can help by reporting misuse.

  • Be respectful. Share your opinions and ideas and respect others’ opinions as well.
  • Help each other! Reply to your peers’ questions and comments.
  • You can also ‘Like’ or follow other learners throughout the course.
  • See if your question has been asked before creating a new post.
  • Use “netiquette,” or common writing practices for online communication. For example:
    – Avoid TYPING IN ALL CAPS. Some people read this as shouting, even if that is not what you mean to convey.
    – Avoid unnecessary symbols, abbreviated words, texting shorthand, and replacing words with numbers (e.g Pls dont rplce wrds w/ #s)

Online security

At all times keep your online security and personal security in mind!

Here are some general tips as you go through this course:

  • Consider using a pseudonym rather than your real name if your participation might put you at risk.
  • Do not share your identity or exact location and never share the identity and location of others.
  • Do not share images of others without their consent.
  • Do not reuse passwords on multiple websites.
  • Keep your computer and device software up to date.

You can read more about security online by downloading the online security document.

Facilitation

This course will be monitored by the Amnesty Human Rights Education team from 12 July until 2 August 2021 and we will aim to respond to questions and support the discussion where possible.

After this the team won’t be able to join the discussions themselves or respond to individual comments, but the course is designed for participatory learning and we encourage you to get involved, support other learners, share your own experience and knowledge, and listen to new perspectives.

We hope that you will enjoy interacting with and learning from each other in this way. As outlined above, please report any inappropriate or misleading content.

If you are new to FutureLearn, you may want to familiarise yourself with how FutureLearn courses work before getting started.

You may also be interested in learning more about FutureLearn’s Terms and Conditions and how they apply to you.

Attached under the downloads section is the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ document which contains the articles of the UDHR. Download this and keep it available for reference.

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Defending Dignity: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

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