Education can be used to defend ,prevent and fight for human rights.

Guillermo Domínguez, administrative director of the Ibero- American Chair of Education in Human Rights, Inclusive Democracy and Social Sustainability and winner of the Catalejo prize awarded by the Human Rights Observatory of Spain, assures that education is an instrument for the forestallment, fight and defence of mortal rights.

Domínguez is chairman of the Organising Committee of the Congress on Education and Human Rights for Social Peace to be held in Bogotá from 11 to 15 September

What’s the main ideal of this Congress?
As the Chair in Human Rights Education, our precedence ideal, from the 50 Ibero- American Universities, with further than 3 million scholars, and its perpetration in 17 Latin American countries, is education as an instrument for the forestallment, fight and defence of mortal rights and, over all, for the most vulnerable groups.

How will it be developed?
Within this frame, the Chair is considering two equals for this 2nd Ibero- American Congress, which will be held in Bogota from 11 to 14 September( in the double modality of on- point and online) on the one hand, the part of education in the field of mortal rights, and, on the other hand, the current situation of mortal rights.

This is how the programme is organised
still, the first day is for education and mortal rights and the alternate day is for reflection on mortal rights in Latin America and universities as organisations in defence of these rights, If you look at the attached programme. In other words, it has been impeccably diversified.

Does the academic perspective prevail?
One day is analysed from the academic perspective of the university and the other is more from the academic perspective of the ombudsmen from each over Latin America, who are the day- to- day fosses, given that we’re going to have virtually 60 or 70 percent representation from FIO and AGOL, the two large organisations of public and original ombudsmen.
The situation in Colombia deserves special attention.

In line with this approach, we gave up a third part of the Congress, because we felt it was important for the environment, so that the Colombians, with us there, but with them, could debate among themselves about the conception of peace. At the moment, the Congress was going to consider the conception of Total Peace in order to acclimatize to the situation in Colombia.
Is there a agreement on this?

We’ve seen that this generated disagreement among the Colombian people themselves, and, in the end, the Congress is going to be called Education and Human Rights for Social Peace, which seems to us to be the key, in other words, as long as there’s no equivalency, minimal mortal rights and social equity, there will be no base for peace, hence the conception of social peace as the axis of the Congress, which education and university education can offer as a donation.
What part are the universities of the network playing in education, in terms of mortal rights in Ibero- America?

Let’s see, the universities in the network, at the moment there are 28 of us, but with the alliances we’ve made with indigenous, Afro and other universities, we’re presently around 50 universities and we’re defining our identity and setting our objects. The Congress is going to be our launch with systems in action at the moment and results.
Since last time we had the first Congress( we started our trip in June 2021, our ideal was to make ourselves known who we were and what we allowed
(www.ciedh.org). And now, what we’re going to make known is what we’re doing( systems and results).

What can we punctuate?

Unnaturally, what we’re doing is carrying out a opinion of the most underprivileged groups, who don’t have access to education, in this case university education, and to their introductory rights. For us, education is, after introductory requirements, the most important mortal right and the key to the intervention of this president, which includes several university networks.

And what other aspects are crucial?

Well, there’s life, minimal weal, freedom of expression and study, but also there’s education, because without education there’s no equity, there’s no future for the most underprivileged classes, there’s no creation, there’s no future for them and no peace process is possible.

What’s the ideal of the Chair?

So, this is the central exploration of the Chair in the coming three times, the fight for the rights of the most vulnerable groups( socially, ethnically, emigrants or people on the move, people with disabilities,etc.), which has also been requested to Europe for backing, to the Erasmus systems of Europe.

What other aspects can we punctuate?

Collaterally, several areas are being worked on socially sustainable universities in the frame of mortal rights as intercultural universities, for gender equivalency and the generation of social leaders( university scholars) for transnational cooperation in the field of mortal rights.

Is there collaboration with companies?

We’re working on an attempt to promote a model and a price for the respect of mortal rights in companies. We’re indeed going to make it possible for a mortal rights prize to appear for companies that want to share, because we indeed have a problem at the moment, which is that there are some companies that do not indeed answer you. It’s like saying, then we do not indeed mess up because it could be worse.

Do you maintain a relationship with the ombudsmen?

All this is part of a macro agreement that we’ve made with the ombudsmen, so that they’re going to be our eyes and our hands in the fosses, and we’re going to be the people, the academics, who help these people to reflect, to give results and indeed to share. I, for illustration, am sharing in a macro exploration design of the entire Colombian ombudsman. That’s to say, we’re in that line.

Are there any other challenges that the network of universities will face?

This is a president, at the moment a network of networks. It began two times ago as a network, and at the moment there are four networks the network of married universities, the network patronized by AUIP, the alliance with the network of protectors that we’ve agreed with them, the network of indigenous universities, Afro universities and another series of university networks that didn’t join at the time and that are now part of a network of uniting universities.

What do you intend with this network of networks?

In this line that we’re a network of networks, for the president, at the moment, the most important challenge is that we want to separate ourselves and characterise ourselves as a network of university networks that are devoted to fighting for the rights of the most vulnerable groups, starting with the right to education at all situations and especially at university position, one of the keys to social bracket and inequality and demarcation of mortal rights, with education there’s the possibility of knowing the rights and fighting for them.

Do they’ve names and surnames?

We don’t want to remain in frills. At the moment, women, children, races, races, impaired people, lower good workers, in other words, groups that are presently suffering from the undermining of their mortal rights. And that will be our aphorism in the comingyears.However, also the most underprivileged groups and mortal rights, the right to university education, If we’re also given the European design.