Youth Challenge
Teaching human rights & responsibilities.

Unit 1: Resources and Worksheets

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Activity sheet: Australian perspectives

Many issues associated with human rights have been in the national news lately. Issues to do with equality in the face of race, sex or disability differences come up frequently in Australian society. Issues to do with political freedoms and the right to speak out about matters have featured in Australian news coverage for many years. Recently, for example, there have been reports of poor treatment of Arab Australians and Muslim Australians. Many criminal cases have some relation to basic human rights issues.

In group discussion, identify some of the human rights issues that are in the news currently being reported. You may like to refer to newspapers or magazines, or think about TV and radio news stories you have seen / heard in the last few weeks. You may be interpretive in your choice of an article that demonstrates an issue of human rights, but you will need to identify what the rights issues are that are raised.

Think about all the parties involved in one of these issues. Does it include a victim (as either an individual or a group) and a perpetrator (again, either an individual or group)? Is an interventionist role identified? If not, could the issue benefit from third party mediation?

Set up an interpretation of one of these issues for presentation to the class. The interpretation should be creative: devise a debate, role-play, courtroom drama to work through the issue. All members of the group should be involved in devising and presenting the work.

Ensure that the perspectives of all parties represented in the news story are given. Include a mediation role even if it is not mentioned in the article. Using what you have learned so far, work toward a proposed resolution of the issue in your presentation.

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