Ref: 25/2021

Date: 18 March 2021

On Thursday, 18 March 2021, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) concluded a training course on human rights targeting 24 female and male students from four universities in the Gaza Strip. The 20-hour training course was held over the course of four consecutive days, from 15 – 18 March 2021 in Gaza City.

The course focused on a number of topics relevant to democracy and human rights to meet the needs of the targeted group, including an introduction to International human rights law (IHRL), the International Bill of Human Rights and the International Conventions on human rights, such as Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as gender concept, political participation for youth, the rule of law, and judicial independence.

At the end of the course, PCHR held a closing ceremony where Abdel Halim Abu Samra, Head of PCHR’s Training Unit, emphasized that this training course is part of PCHR’s long-term efforts that aim to train and raise awareness of university students in human rights and build a generation able to defend their basic rights and freedom and participate in creating a democratic society.

Abu Samra called upon participants in the training course to be human rights defenders and to disseminate the culture of human rights in general and women’s rights in particular among their peers and in their colleges.

For their part, the participants emphasized that the training course brought them new knowledge, with the rich topics it addressed and its contribution to raising their awareness of human rights. They also commended the competence of the trainers and the participatory and diverse training methodology, calling for holding such training courses for university students.

At the end of the course, all participants received certificates.