When we hear the term ‘human rights’, the first thing that comes to our mind is that it is the subjective chapter of jurisprudence studies, or perhaps, in a broader aspect, of mass media or similar social sciences. In reality, it is a crucial subject for every citizen.

Talking about Bangladesh, it is the concern of 20 crore people, from the deepest remote village to the person sitting in a high-rise building in Dhaka.

It became more evident and clear to me after I attended a two-day workshop (16 hours, parallel to a course) titled “Human Rights – From Theory to Practice”, an innovative and interactive workshop by the Applied Democracy Lab, University of Dhaka, in collaboration with the Danish Institute for Human Rights, Copenhagen, Denmark.

To me, it was a unique and very creative initiative among all the human rights-related workshops or courses.

If picturising Day 1, the workshop started with ice-breaking, setting a code of conduct for the next two days, a pre-test on human rights, followed by activities such as Know Your Rights, Human Rights System, Inclusive Communication, Documentation of Human Rights, Diversity in Opinion, and Report Human Rights Violation. The more rhythmic the activity titles were, the more fun they were to do. I had to do a balloon battle royale (saving my human rights article from the 30 given by the UDHR), walk through a gallery, make shapes with other participants through non-verbal communication, give human rights a voice by drawing pictures, understand new frontiers of human rights through agree or disagree, identify rights-holders and duty-bearers, and write a petition, respectively.

All these activities had one purpose, to inject the 30 human rights in a different manner. Most importantly, in the form of practical demonstration. One example can be like this: let us say we are all aware of human rights. But how much we possess and exercise those rights, how legally we can raise our voice, how inclusive communication plays a vital role, how to respect others’ opinions, and which opinions to support logically were all learned through these activities.

It was not confined to Day 1 only. Day 2 also had activities such as getting involved in the ADL network, Human Rights – Fact Finding and Advocacy, which included a mock courtroom activity based on the breach of human rights, an ADL action project overview, and lastly, we had six groups of five each where projects were assigned for implementation so that what we had learned on the first day could be put into practice.

Participants from different universities and different disciplines came with the opportunity of having this workshop as an open workshop. It provided an excellent opportunity for networking, collaboration, and bonding for future projects and actions. Every individual had their own excellence, intellect, perspective, and personality, which helped boost confidence alongside removing boredom from the workshop.

The practical demonstrations helped in gaining knowledge about the HR Foundations, the UDHR, the ICCPR, the ICESCR, and the International Bill of Human Rights (these three organisations form this bill). Alongside this, it helped in learning how to write a petition, how to inform the concerned authorities regarding the breach of a human right, brainstorming, and finding an idea, etc.

Overall, the workshop was designed to a different degree for direct implementation in community dynamics to raise awareness among people about human rights, the legal rights they are entitled to from birth. Officially, Defending Human Rights was worth every bit.