From 17th to 21st June 2026, AHEAD representatives joined human rights educators, youth workers, and activists in Turin, Italy, for the symposium "Stand for our Rights: Resilience of Human Rights Education in an Era of Shrinking Spaces", which was hosted by Giosef Torino.

Since 2009, AHEAD has been working to strengthen democratic values, peace, and solidarity through non-formal education. But today, practitioners face a tough reality: shrinking civic spaces, geopolitical tensions, and a growing gap between political promises and real actions.

This gave the community of human rights education practitioners a much-needed space to step back, reconnect, and ask a fundamental question: How can human rights education stay effective when working in hostile or resistant environments?

What We Focused On:

• Rethinking Our Tools: Checking if traditional legal frameworks still work in today's context—and how we can adapt them for schools, youth groups, and local communities.

• Sharing Practical Strategies: Exchanging non-formal methodologies and peer-support tools for educators working under pressure.

• Connecting Local & Global: Linking our everyday groundwork in Catalonia and Spain with the broader European and Mediterranean landscape.

What’s Next? The HRE Manifesto

Together with participants from across Europe, we co-created the draft for a Manifesto on Human Rights Education in Times of Human Rights Violations. The organizers are currently putting the final touches on it. Once ready, it will be shared with international decision-makers as a collective call to action.

We return from Turin with new ideas, stronger partnerships, and a renewed drive to keep human rights education creative, accessible, and resilient!