April, 2024
Event Details
When: Saturday, April 6, 2024 | 11:00
Where: The Demos Center | (17b Ipitou Str., Plaka)
Organized by:
The Demos Center, Institute for Hellenic Culture & the Liberal Arts
Focus Human Rights
Celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
You are cordially invited to join us for the third event in the Focus: Human Rights series for Spring Semester 2024.
Attendance is by invitation only
About the event
The event will be the closure of a long preparation of activities on the articles contained in the UN Convention on Children’s Rights, through workshops with teenagers of refugee background, mainly residing in Athens, Greece. The workshops are based on the children’s novel Do I Have the Right to Tell a Story? by Anna Mertzani, (ed. Apopeira, 2011), which has recently been translated into English and Arabic, with the kind support of Alta Mane Fondation, Geneva, to reach out to as many young readers as possible. Through the adventures of eight friends in the summer camp, the young reader dives into the articles of the Convention and explores their practical application in their daily lives.
The teenagers who participate in the workshops come from different NGOs in Athens and are expected to attend the festival the core activity of which is the debate tables. Each team will be given a different case study, in which they, as young leaders, are expected to detect children’s rights violations, find the correspondent article in the Convention, explain how each right is violated, and tell what they would do to either prevent the situation or make suggestions on future prevention. They will also be encouraged to propose rights that are omitted in the Convention or to rephrase articles they feel do not represent them completely.
The closing of the festival will be celebrated by Middle Eastern and African music.
The event is organized in collaboration with the Greek Council for Refugees and the Alta Mane Fondation, Geneva.
About the Speaker/Author/Facilitator
Anna Mertzani is a mental health counselor, educator, and writer of the book Do I Have the Right to Tell a Story? She is currently working as the director of the Intercultural Center PYXIDA, of the Greek Council for Refugees. In her private practice as a therapist, she coordinates therapy and empowerment groups of diverse populations and has been working and coordinating interdisciplinary teams on integration programs for Roma children and refugees for the last seven years. She holds a Greek University Degree in Pre-School Teaching, an M.A. in Child Care, Law and Practice from Keele University, UK, and a Mental Health Counselor’s degree in Gestalt Therapy.
About the Demos Center
The Demos Center is a part of the Institute for Hellenic Culture and the Liberal Arts. It promotes democracy by fostering civic engagement, multiculturalism, and inclusivity through the practice of engaged and effective citizenship.
It celebrates and creates programming around the pillars of healthy democracies. This includes promoting dialogue, debate to inspire sustainable global societies.
Human Rights are the foundation of any healthy democracy. This series, Focus: Human Rights, will address multiple aspects of human rights and the challenges being faced today.