Digital Teaching Toolkit for Human Rights Education in Timor-Leste

In the framework of the capacity-building project for the creation of the UNTL Human Rights Centre, together with the National University of Timor-Lorosa’e and the EU Delegation in Dili, are proud to announce the Digital Learning Initiative (DLI) “An Introduction to Human Rights in Southeast Asia”, to support the development of human rights education, especially in times of distance learning.

This initiative is made possible thanks to the support of the European Union. In this regard EU Ambassador Andrew Jacobs stated that “The Human Rights Centre, which the European Union is proud to support, has made a great contribution to the teaching and understanding of human rights in Timor-Leste. This Digital Learning Initiative will make the study of human rights even more accessible.”

The DLI allows to blend e-learning with in-class participation, and includes a new textbook, 30 video-lectures, PPT slides and a glossary designed in Tetum and English languages. They are created for UNTL professors and teaching assistants of the Human Rights Centre, and the students of the new transversal course, adopted by UNTL in 2020 and implemented in the current semester as a pilot edition.

According to UNTL Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs Prof. Samuel Freitas, “this initiative is a new permanent training and studying tool contributing to the didactic innovation of the National University for the mainstreaming of human rights education through its faculties, starting with the transversal course”.

All materials were developed together with regional scholars of the Global Campus Asia-Pacific and the ASEAN University Network. They were carefully adapted and tested by the Timorese human rights graduates, UNTL professors and alumni trained during the project. Moreover, several human rights organizations in Timor-Leste have collaborated to include local examples and case study, among them CNC, PDHJ, ALFeLa, ADTL and Lao Hamutuk.

Global Campus Project Manager Adriano Remiddi explains that “the DLI focuses on the basic notions of human rights studies, plus a selection of topics related to the most pressing issues in Timor-Leste. We are proud of this initiative and particularly of the textbook, published as an open source and made available to everyone”.

For this academic year the DLI is available as a beta version to support the pilot edition of the new course. All materials will be finalized and re-published in 2022 after having incorporated students’ and teachers’ feedback. All human rights education initiatives in Timor-Leste are encouraged to use these materials and provide their valuable inputs.

Access the Digital Learning Initiative here:

http://www.gchumanrights.org/hrc-untl/digital-learning-initiative