“The Pandemic is Galvanizing Change”: Anti-Racism in Human Rights Education With Youth

This article discusses how the heightened visibility of racial discrimination coupled with the repression of young people’s civil and political rights during the COVID-19 pandemic is surfacing the need for human rights education (HRE) to evolve to address anti-racism more intentionally. With youth’s amplified awareness of racism and their call for change, HRE practitioners reflect on the use of language, the limitations of “celebrating diversity” and the ways spaces are held for youth engagement as a means of building inclusion given the lived injustices across communities. As children’s rights researchers and practitioners, we consider how our focus on age has resulted in the inadvertent neglect of the interdependence of the rights to participation and to non-discrimination. Shifting to a more critical HRE includes embracing intersectionality and reflexivity, actively bringing BIPOC youth to the centre of sharing and informing, and cultivating youth engagement on racial justice to catalyze systemic-level change.