History & Programs
The mission of the Idaho Human Rights Education Center is to "promote respect for human dignity and diversity through education and to foster individual responsibility to work for justice and peace."
The Center achieves this mission through educational programs with teachers and students, community leadership and advocacy in human rights. The Center was founded in 1996 to construct a memorial to human rights. In August 2002, that vision became a reality when the Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial opened to the public. Today, thousands of school children and adults tour the Memorial each year and participate in our programs.
- Our comprehensive K-12 "Scope & Sequence" of human rights classroom lessons authored by Idaho teachers is the only one of its kind in the nation;
- An annual statewide human rights art contest for K-12 students with classroom posters and lessons featuring the grand prize winning entries;
- An annual five-day human rights summer institute and two-day fall workshop for Idaho teachers;
- Free booklets containing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English and Spanish;
- Human rights/diversity training for educator, student, business and nonprofit groups each year;
- Collaboration with more than 20 organizations statewide and regionally to advance human rights;
- Creation and nonprofit fiscal sponsorship of the Idaho Safe Schools Coalition;
- Organization of Human Rights Education Missions for Idaho teacher and administrators, including Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands (2007), the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland (2007 & 2008), China (2007), Korea (2008), and Germany (2009);
- Creation of over 60 classroom lessons designed to bring global connections, global cultures, and global issues into Idaho's classrooms and the DVD "Make Injustice Visible: The Rose Beal Story," a local Memorial docent's tale of Holocaust survival;
- Administration of the Center for Civic Education's Project Citizen curriculum program in Idaho;
- Partnership with Co-operation Ireland (Republic of Ireland/Northern Ireland), Fundacion Presencia (Colombia), and the Jordanian Center for Civic Education Studies (Jordan) in integrating human rights in education for democracy;
- Teacher training in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosova, and Serbia on the implementation of a human rights framework in education for democracy;
- Program development and delivery of Youth LEAD, a three-week leadership program for high school students from Israel, Jordan and the West Bank conducted in Boise, Idaho and a reciprocal program for Idaho students traveling to the Middle East; and,
- Program development and delivery of Global LEAP, a three-week leadership program for school administrators from Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela conducted in Boise, Idaho.