Reflections on the Latin American Seminar on Pedagogy and Human Rights

Abstract

For a long time, the reality of injustice in Latin America has led us to understand the struggle for human rights as a great effort to vindicate the basic right to life. These many efforts have progressively forged a more global understanding of the problem. The so-called «generations» of human rights redefined the right to a quality of life. And thus, other rights besides political ones entered the demands for life. Today, our challenge is to continue existing, to move from formal declarations of rights for all to their practice. But the challenge will also be to be able to speak of a «solidarity-based globalization». Human rights are, from this perspective, a task begun in history and a project of ongoing humanization. It is from this perspective that at the Poveda Center we have been promoting a socio-pedagogical approach in which the process of knowledge construction, the organization of educational spaces, and relationships are permeated by an ethical and political dimension, so that educational action fosters the formation of individuals and collectives with the capacity to democratically influence their reality.