Another successful year in terms of raising awareness about human rights!

Once again, the year 2014 turned out to be very productive with a lot of trainings organized by European Foundation of Human Rights (EFHR). Their topic concerned broadly defined both human and civil rights and liberties. EFHR realizes how serious and important the issue of human rights is and how little society knows about it and that’s why the Foundation conducted a series of trainings for students at schools and universities and also public trainings.

The workshops that were dedicated to young people took place e.g. on 28^th of July in Sudeikiai, where the lecture about fighting discrimination in the Internet was given, at the scout camp for girls aged 11 to 17 years old where the lecture focused on enhancing knowledge about human rights and documents connected to them took place. Also, an intensive series of 15 trainings about discrimination and hatred in modern world were conducted in Vilnius and its surrounding from 15^th to 30^th of September. Workshops that took place in Polish school from 26^th of November to 3^rd of December turned out to be a great success. Then, over 100 students got a chance to learn about human rights basics, get to know the most significant international regulations regarding these rights and a practice used at the international level. During these trainings and lectures the leaflets and educational materials were given away and contests for students were organized. Such topics of lectures and workshops are necessary due to low social awareness in the field of human rights, as participants pointed.

Lectures about the situation of national minorities in Lithuania were conducted e.g. on the 15^th of March for the students of University of Technology in Chemnitz, Germany and on the 30^th of April in International School of Law and Business. Moreover, on the 28^th of October, 2014, in the seat of the Foundation, a meeting in the framework of a project organized by Youth EPICenter took place, during which the young leaders from Croatia, Latvia, Macedonia, Great Britain and Italy were presented to the EFHR as a leading organization engaged in human rights in Lithuania. Each of the meetings were very popular both among students and lecturers.

Public lectures were also highly popular. On the 19^th of June, the series of trainings called “Human Rights Litigation: Using International and European Mechanisms’’  were conducted. The trainings, in which participated over 60 persons, concerned using European and international mechanism in order to protect human rights and were given by an outstanding expert on international law, professor Fernanda de Varennesa. Thus, a record number of participants – over 80 persons – were hosted by the EFHR during the trainings called “How to combine national and international law: theory and practice’’ that took place on the 3^rd of December.

Total number of people participating in EFHR trainings in 2014 was over 1000 persons that is considered a great success and a contribution into increasing of the community’s awareness.

EFHR hopes that the forthcoming year will turn out to be just as successful in the field of enhancing knowledge about human rights as the year 2014.

EFHR