Romanian Institute for Human Rights

Contests

Educating the younger generations in the spirit of respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms, dignity and tolerance, and free exchange of opinions is a goal that is at the basis of a partnership between the Romanian Institute for Human Rights and the Ministry of National Education that is substantiated in the form of traditional by now activities: the national school contests the “Civic Education and Civic Culture Olympics” and “Democracy and Tolerance” as well as the “Contest on didactic creativeness in achieving auxiliary material to be used with human rights education”.

Contests with annual periodicity


National Olympics of Socio-Human Sciences
The Contest is addressed to students with skills in the field of socio-human sciences, focusing on education for familiarization with and application of the fundamental values of human rights, for behaviours that respect these essential rights, and competencies for participation in the public life.

Disciplines: civic education, civic culture, logics, psychology, sociology, economy and philosophy

With the civic education section, students are organized in teams of two 3rd or 4th grade students, while with the civic culture section they are organized in teams of 7th and 8th grade students of the same school unit.

National Contest “Democracy and Tolerance”

The Contest is a complex form of civic education that involves students in primary and secondary schools.

Goals:

  • assuming the role and the status of citizen of a democratic society;
  • shaping and developing a positive civic spirit;
  • familiarizing the students with essential concepts characterizing a democratic society and the rule of law: democracy, tolerance, human rights, rights of the child;
  • familiarizing the students with the national and the international legislation referring to these concepts;
  • making the students exercise democratic, tolerant behaviours and the civic spirit;
  • forming and developing the students’ abilities to participate in the life of the educational community;
  • developing the students’ motivation for promoting and defending human rights and the rights of the child;


Phases:

  • theoretic (consists in a written paper);
  • practical-applicative (elaboration of a project for solving one of the problems faced by the school or the local community to which the students belong, the project having the form of a portfolio);
  • artistic (achievement of a plastic work – drawing, graphics, painting, collage, sculpture, etc., illustrating the solution to the problem presented in the project in the practical-applicative phase)

The students are organized into three-member teams, one of which is a primary school student.


National Olympiad of Socio-Human Sciences
On April 22-26, 2019, the final round of the National Olympiad of Socio-Human Sciences took place in Brașov, a competition of excellence attended by students with skills and interest in the field of human sciences. The competition subjects were: civic education, civic culture, logic, psychology, sociology, economics and philosophy.

In the field of civic education, the crews of two or three-grade pupils from the same school produced a written work and a poster (drawings, collages, paintings) related to the human rights issue. The civic culture participates developed a project in the same formula (this time they were from the 7th or 8th grades) aiming to solve a problem in their school by identifying the causes, the violated rights, the possible solutions, their comparative analysis and the argumentation for the chosen solutions. The result was an action plan with stages, types of activities, focal points and persons involved for each of them.

See the table (Tabel_premianti.pdf)

The Olympics of Altruism

The Social Assistance Department of the Faculty of Sociology and Psychology of the West University of Timisoara, in partnership with the Romanian Institute for Human Rights, launched the contest called "The Olympics of Altruism".

In order to promote and reward pro-active behaviors and values of co-operation and support in the community, the contest is addressed to students of the 12th grade from any of the Romanian educational institutions accredited by the Ministry of National Education, which contribute to the development of an inclusive society.

Students will submit for the contest a document (text, collage, photo, video) that tells the story of a volunteer activity they have undertaken.

Contest calendar

15 February 2019 – Launch of the contest

15 February - 15 April 2019 - Receiving materials

10 May 2019 - Announcement of results; the papers will be evaluated by a jury made up of teachers from the Social Assistance Department and social work practitioners.

21 May 2019 – Award festivity at the West University of Timisoara. There will be six awards. For more information, go to the Contest Submission Poster and Contest rules


April 15th
The period for submission of the works for the Olympics of Altruism, organized by the Department of Social Assistance at the Faculty of Sociology and Psychology of the West University of Timisoara, in partnership with the Romanian Institute for Human Rights, ended. The admitted works are going to enter the judging stage, attended by the Department of Social Work teachers, social assistance practitioners and experts from the RIHR Training Sector as evaluators.

The variety of voluntary actions in which the competitors participated, the way they presented them, the arguments offered for the active involvement of students in solving the problems of their communities and the representativeness at the country level (Suceava, Dej, Filiaşi, Fălticeni, Timişoara, Vatra Dornei, Deva, Ploieşti, Oradea, Cluj-Napoca etc.) are gratifying and show that young people are becoming more aware of the value of altruistic gestures.

 

Contests without periodicity

  • Drawing contest on “Is it only in the dark that we are alike?”, organized in the framework of the events devoted to the European Action Week Against Racism (2015)
  • Plastic creation contest for primary school students, organized in the framework of the events devoted to the Human Rights Day (2016)
  • Contest of essays, stories and plastic works on “Human rights – universality or privilege?”, organized for students in primary schools (2016)
  • Contest entitled “Rights and responsibilities”

Held in the period 30 October – 10 November, the contest was addressed to children between 12-14 years of age. For several rights laid down in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and displayed by the Contest Poster, the children were supposed to write down at least three responsibilities they had in their relations with friends, colleagues, the family, school and the community.

  • Poetry and drawings contest organized at Secondary School “Prof. Ion Vişoiu”

The contest, organized to celebrate the International Children’s Day, focused on children’s rights. Evaluation and awarding were provided by the Institute.
The drawing contest, involving 17 children, was an opportunity for the participants to use their colours, gift and imagination to illustrate a large range of rights (to a healthy environment, to national identity, to play, to education and to protection). The three winners were awarded prizes consisting of books.

  • Literary and plastic creation contests organized at Secondary School “Take Ionescu”

Two contests organized on occasion of the Global Education Week in the period 18-26 November 2017. The literary creation contest was entitled “Words and attitudes for a happy childhood”, while the plastic creation one was entitled “The face and colours of childhood”. The awarding ceremony took place on 10 December.

  • Poster contest on “It’s time for tolerance”

Organized at Secondary School “Mihai Viteazul” in Pucioasa, the contest focused on “tolerance” and addressed students in both primary and secondary educational cycles.
In the 80 posters they achieved, the children used their imagination and colours to express the concept of “tolerance” both as a defining value of human personality and perceived in a broader meaning as the capacity to accept, to understand and to interact with people around, irrespective of nationality, skin colour, ethnicity, language, religion, culture, etc.
The eight winners of the contest (Bănescu Daria, VIII-C, Mituţă Daria, IV-B; Butcă Andreea, V-C; Mărculescu Teodora / Toma Ştefania,   VII-B; Ioniţă Elena, VIII-B; Pântea Alexia / Nechita Ioana, VII-C; Măntescu Bianca, V-A; Negoiţescu Arina / Poşchină Andreea,  VIII-A) were awarded by the Romanian Institute for Human Rights on the International Day for Tolerance, 16 November 2018. The awards consisted in encyclopaedias and books produced by “Corint” and “Epica” publishing houses, based on the partnership concluded between the latter and RIHR.

  • Drawing contest

On occasion of the Universal Children’s Day, celebrated on 20 November every year to mark the day when the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted (20 November 1989), Secondary School “Radu Stanian” – Ploieşti, in collaboration with the Romanian Institute for Human Rights, organised a drawing contest entitled “I am a child, I have rights”, where 5th grade students illustrated in their drawings full of imagination and talent some of their rights (right to family, right to education, right to health, right to freedom of opinion, right to play and recreation, right to freedom of expression, etc.)which are laid down in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. A jury made up of the representative of RIHR and a member of the school teaching staff awarded diplomas to the winners. More... (ro)

  • Plastic creativity contest entitled „Children’s rights as seen by children themselves”

On occasion of the Universal Children’s Day (20 November), the Romanian Institute for Human Rights, in partnership with Secondary School No. 117, organized a plastic creativity contest entitled “Children’s rights as seen by children themselves”. The drawings, creative and original, approached several types of rights: to family, to health, to information, to education, to protection against violence, etc.
Some students even included written messages on their drawings: “Children’s rights should be respected”, “People have the same rights, but different preferences”, “Certain rights are violated”.
The winning drawings are going to be included in a thematic exhibition devoted to Human Rights Day (10 December), alongside with drawings achieved by other children from Bucharest and other locations in the country.

  • Essay contest on the National Culture Day

Article 29 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child provides that the educational process shall be directed to “the development of respect for the child’s parents, his or her own cultural identity, language and values, for the national values of the country in which the child is living, the country from which he or she may originate, and for civilizations different from his or her own”.
Bearing in mind these desiderata and given the celebration of the National Culture Day in January, the Romanian Institute for Human Rights, together with its partners – Editorial Group “Corint” and the Museum of Bucharest Municipality – are going to bring to the attention of children and teenagers the emblematic figures of the Romanian culture by means of a contest of mini-essays.
The contest takes place between 20 November – 20 December 2018, while ten of the participants will be awarded packs of books offered by Editorial Group “Corint” and a visit to the Museum, in the framework of a festivity organized on 15 January at the Museum of Bucharest Municipality – Şuţu Palace.
The mini-essays, entitled “Why do I like…” (name of the chosen personality or historical figure) shall be sent to the e-mail address office@irdo.ro and motivate in half-up-to-one page pages the choice in the title.
May you be inspired and good luck!
More details here (ro) and here (ro).

  • Essay Contest "Democracy and Tolerance"

At the proposal of the Romanian Institute for Human Rights, the essay contest took place at the Gymnasium School 113 on the occasion of the International Tolerance Day. Participating students have approached in their essays the theme of tolerance in the context of human values ​​from their own perspective. They have written about accepting diversity, understanding other people without prejudices on grounds of race, color, nationality, ethnicity, religious convictions, customs or  traditions. They shared their experiences and facts of life. The jury of the contest took into account  the personal touch , writing skills and the ability to have an overview of the phenomenon of intolerance and of the consequences it may have on society. The Romanian Institute for Human Rights awarded the winning essays; the prizes consisting in diplomas and publications, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, illustrated for children and translated into Romanian. All the participants received RIHR publications on human rights. On this occasion, RIHR has concluded a partnership with the Gymnasium School 113, Bucharest.

Useful links Blog School 113:  click here