

23

Changing the Mindset:
Fazaldad Human Rights InstituteFazaldad Human Rights InstituteT

he Fazaldad Human Rights Institute (FHRI) was founded in 2000 tocounter the growing violation of people’s rights in Pakistani society. It
was established in memory of Dr. Fazaldad Wahla, a Pakistani dentist who
interjected in an attempted honor killing of a young girl and ended up losing his
own life to save her.
FHRI is founded on the belief that prevention is the best approach to combat violence andextremism and utilizes the education system asa tool to alter the society’s mindset at an earlychildhood stage.
In 2005, FHRI was awarded Special Consultative Status with the United Nations (UN)Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC),
one of only seven Pakistani non-governmentalorganizations (NGOs) to be awarded this status
in the past fifty-eight years. The Pakistan Centre
for Philanthropy has also officially recognized
FHRI as an institution working for public
service.
FHRI’s effort towards spreading moderation and tolerance along with human rights has
been acclaimed as a unique and effective tool tocounter extremism and terrorism in the Muslim
world. Developed countries have been countering international terrorism by hunting down
terrorists, cutting off their funding, confronting
states that harbor terrorists, and strengthening
democracy. But the only certain, long-termand effective way to counter such intolerance
and terrorism is to change the mindset. Thiscan best be achieved by inculcating respect formoderation, enlightenment, peace, tolerance
and human rights through a sustained program

directed towards the twenty million teachers andstudents in the country’s education system.

The institute
FHRI is a non-political, non-profit organization working very closely with the governmentof Pakistan and with the civil society to eliminate
human rights abuse by spreading human rights
awareness through educational institutions,the media, and individuals throughout thecountry. FHRI is mainly concerned with thetraining of teachers, trainers, school principals,
school headmasters, District Education Officers (EDOs), District Officers, police officers,
lawyers, judicial officers, and bureaucrats who
can effectively propagate the message. All these
individuals require training, as they have noprevious formal education on human rights.
FHRI has taken upon itself the challengeof creating mass awareness on human rights
through educational institutions, media andindividuals throughout the country. The main
objectives aimed at are:
• To reach out and convey to as many people
as possible the importance of protectionof individual and collective human rights23

24  HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION IN ASIAN SCHOOLS

which are an essential part of a sustained
democratic order;• To promote human rights, rule of law, constitutional reforms;• To impart human rights training to teachers,
trainers, school principals, school headmasters, educationists, police officers, judges
and bureaucrats to enable them to introduce
the subject in schools, colleges, and training
institutions;• To change the mindset of the people to counter human rights abuses and extremism insociety;• To develop clarity, depth and understanding of human rights for teachers, who willthen be able to effectively teach the subjectof human rights, which has recently been
introduced in the curriculum of schools fromClass 1 to Class 10. No similar program fortraining teachers at the national level exists
in the country;• To empower Pakistani women, irrespectiveof caste, creed, religion, or socio-economic
status;• To make women become aware of their fullpotential in all spheres of life, specially social,economic, personal and political;• To enable women to participate in the decision-making process that affects their lives
and their families;• To remove inequities and imbalances in all
sectors of socio-economic development
and to ensure women’s equal access to all
development benefits and social services;• To safeguard the rights of children and minorities;• To make people become aware that humanrights are an integral part of Islam, which isa religion of peace and tolerance;• To make women understand their rights andresponsibilities as members of society;• To develop values of tolerance, understanding, acceptance of differences in opinion;• To develop the values of sacrifice and selflessness so as to show big-heartedness andopen-mindedness;• To develop problem solving and conflict
resolution skills;• To counter extremism by promoting understanding of tolerance, peace and humanrights and to help bring in positive societal
changes by modifying attitudes and promoting responsible behavioral patterns at
grassroots level;• To develop a society that is tolerant, liberal,and protects and respects the rights of all
citizens.
Many NGOs have excellent programs on assisting the oppressed and the victims of abuse.
The program of FHRI is unique in that it concentrates exclusively on changing the mindset insociety so that such abuse or victimization does
not occur in the first place. It is based on theconviction that concentrating on the promotionof moderation and tolerance and condemning
extremism and violence will make people moretolerant and far less inclined to engage in or
endorse extremist activities. It is “preventive”
rather than “corrective” program.

Activities
FHRI has been involved in a number ofactivities involving human rights and humanrights education organized either by it or by
the government and other institutions. These
activities are the following:• Pakistan Convention on Human Rights andHuman Dignity (2000)• Amendment of curriculum for all schools inPakistan to include human rights educationin all classes up to secondary level• Training programs on human rights formaster trainers in diploma courses and forteachers in one-day workshops•	Special courses for religious teachers and themedia• Human rights days in schools• Confidence-building measures between
India and Pakistan including Incidents at

Changing the Mindset: Fazaldad Human Rights Institute  25

Sea (INCSEA) Treaty, Sir Creek dispute,care and release of arrested fisherfolk ofboth countries and other related maritime
issues.

Government-Civil Society Cooperation
FHRI is working closely with the government of Pakistan and with the civil society tointroduce sustainable formal human rights
education in the country. Government-civilsociety cooperation in human rights started during the 21-22 April 2000 Pakistan Convention
on Human Rights and Human Dignity. This
was FHRI’s first public involvement, with the
FHRI’s Chairperson, Mr. Naeem Sarfraz, as oneof the convention organizers. Six hundred persons, including the President of Pakistan, seniorcivil and government representatives, diplomats,civil society representatives, NGOs and otherstakeholders participated in the convention.
FHRI is also working very closely with
the Curriculum Wing, Federal Ministry of
Education; Bureau of Curriculum Extension
Wing Sindh, Jamshoro; Provincial Instituteof Teachers Education, Sindh; Directorateof Curriculum Research and Development,
Azad Kashmir; Directorate of Curriculum andTeacher Education, North West Frontier Province (NWFP); and Punjab Textbook Board.
FHRI’s Chairperson, Mr. Naeem Sarfraz, also
acted as the convener of the government’s civilsociety committee, headed by the two Federal
Ministers charged with introducing humanrights education in the country. An Implementation Committee for human rights awarenesswas also formed, in which one federal ministerand one federal secretary were chairpersons and
Mr. Sarfraz was the convener.

Human rights curriculum
The first and most significant step in humanrights education is its integration into the school

curriculum from Class 1 to secondary level toallow twenty million Pakistani students to get
regular, formal education on moderation andtolerance throughout their academic careers.
The Chairperson of FHRI was involvedin the meetings held between the Curriculum
Wings of the Federal Government and theProvincial Governments regarding the school
curriculum and human rights education. Thesemeetings came up with a number of suggestions
on how to integrate human rights education
into the school curriculum. The suggestions
were subsequently incorporated in the national
curriculum through the National Plan of Actionfor Human Rights Education that was adopted
by the Curriculum Wing, Federal Ministryof Education in 2001.1 FHRI has also beenleading in the nationwide implementation of
the national action plan through its training
programs.
The work on changing the school curriculum to integrate human rights education took
three years. The revised school curriculum wasintroduced in the country during the 2003-2004
period. It then became necessary to teach theteachers, who were untrained on human rights
education. The government sponsored teacher
training in human rights, but with a very slow
pace of implementation. With this situation, thegovernment would take several years to train asufficient number of teachers, while the needfor trained teachers was immediate. Meanwhile,
FHRI has already established a wide networkof resource persons - from the government andcivil society - that undertake this work in a more
efficient and effective manner.

Training courses
One-week Diploma Courses
From 2001 to date, FHRI has conducted
twenty-six diploma courses. In these courses,
about seven hundred eighty administrators, professors, school principals, school headmasters,26  HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION IN ASIAN SCHOOLS

lawyers, judges, police officers and senior officers were trained to help them introduce humanrights education effectively in their respective
jurisdictions. These participants were expectedto act as the nucleus in spreading the humanrights knowledge acquired to their fellow staff
members, students and teachers. The multipliereffect of this method is enormous.
Each course has an average of thirty participants. They hail from the four provinces of
the country, the capital, Federally Administered
Tribal Areas (FATA) and Azad Kashmir. They
include teachers from teacher-training colleges,school principals and school headmasters fromgovernment colleges and schools, and teachers
from federal government training bodies likethe National Institute of Public Administration, Pakistan Administrative Staff College,
Civil Services Academy, Judicial Academy, Police
Academy and the Secretariat Training Institute.
During the weeklong sessions, participants areintensively familiarized with, and sensitized on,
basic human rights topics focusing on the threemost vulnerable groups (women, children andminorities).
Upon returning to their jobs, the participants are expected to train teachers and/or theirfellow staff members who, in turn, can impart
the same knowledge to students in their respective institutions. These master trainers thus act
as a nucleus in disseminating the knowledge
they have acquired in the courses to others intheir community.
The diploma courses have the following
key topics:• Concepts of Human Rights in the 21stCentury• The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (UDHR)• Child Rights•	Women’s Empowerment, The Convention on the Elimination of All Formsof Discrimination against Women(CEDAW), etc.
• Minorities Rights• Human Rights in Islam• Human Rights & the Judiciary•	Sexual Harassment at the Work Place•	Violence Against Women and the Roleof Police• Child Sexual Abuse• Peace & Conflict Resolution• Human Rights & Discipline•	What Teachers Can Do Towards Human
Rights Education• Teaching Methodologies, Classroom
Management, Lesson Planning.

One-Day Workshops
Besides the diploma courses, FHRI holds
one-day familiarization workshops for teachers
in district headquarters throughout Pakistan.
The FHRI’s resource persons, with the helpof local partners, conduct comprehensive oneday programs for groups of 200-250 teachers
at a time. Similarly, teams go out to schools
to help them conduct one-day human rights
awareness workshops for their fellow teachers
and the students.
More than sixty districts have been coveredso far and about 26,000 teachers have been enabled to teach human rights to students. Theyleave the workshops in far stronger position toconvey the essence of human rights to others. In
addition to teachers, local community leaders,lawyers, administrators and religious teachers
from madrassas (religious schools often blamed
for training terrorists) also participate in the
one-day workshops.
The one-day workshops have the following
key topics:• Concepts of Human Rights in the 21stCentury•	Women’s Rights• Human Rights in Islam• Child Rights•	What can Teachers Do Towards Human
Rights Education?

Changing the Mindset: Fazaldad Human Rights Institute  27

Research Projects
During the diploma courses, participants
carry out research through fieldwork. The research focuses on the three vulnerable groups,
i.e. women, children and minorities. Research
topics include child labor, harassment faced by
women at the workplace, domestic violence, andthe plight of minorities. The detailed reports
submitted by participants contribute to FHRI’s
vast bank of research papers.

Special Courses
Special workshops for religious leaders andJamia’s Khateebs (Muslim clerics) have been
held. Students of institutes like Da’wah Academy, Islamic Women University and Al Huda
Foundation have also participated in these
special workshops.

rights in reports on domestic violence, discrimination against women, minorities’ rights, childabuse, bonded labor and honor killings. The
print media is making considerable contribution
through special posters on human rights fordisplay in police stations and district offices.

Teaching materials
FHRI found out during visits to many Pakistani schools the lack of literature that can guideteachers in understanding and teaching humanrights concepts. It thus developed human rights
literatures emphasizing the rights of the vulnerable in society (women, children and minorities)
and distributed them to participants in its workshops and training courses. The human rights
publications of FHRI are listed below:

Media Workshops

1. Human Rights for Teachers andAdministrators – a book containing
fundamental human rights documents
including:

FHRI, in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO), hasorganized workshops for print and electronic
media personnel in Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore,
Peshawar and Quetta. The main objective of
these workshops was to create and strengthen
knowledge about ideas and values of humanrights among media personnel, the importanceof which has become critical due to the prevailing situation in the country. Enabling media
people to participate in the process of awareness-creation on pressing human rights issues
is imperative. These activities have proven tohave great impact, as seen in the newspaper
articles and television broadcasts of the people
who have attended the FHRI courses. The
number of articles on human rights issues has
increased tremendously since 2002, when thefirst workshop was conducted. Following themedia workshops, most of the participants havefollowed up by highlighting abuses of humanThis booklet is distributed to teachers andparticipants who attend programs organized
by FHRI. It also published the same book in
the regional languages (Urdu, Pashto, Balochi,
Darri, Brahwi and Sindhi).

i) Pakistan’s human rights education curriculum for primary and secondary
schools;ii) Farewell Hajj address of the Prophet
Mohammad;iii) The Constitution of Pakistan (Articles 7
to 40);
iv) The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (UDHR);v) The Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW);vi) The Convention on the Rights of Child(CRC);
vii) The Cairo Declaration on Human
Rights.

28  HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION IN ASIAN SCHOOLS

2. Our Children’s Concept of Human
RightsFHRI published Our Children’s Conceptof Human Rights that contains children’s illustrations about their concept of human rights.
These illustrations were produced during the‘Human Rights Day’ celebration in different
schools. During this celebration, students makeposters on various issues like peace, fundamental
rights, child labor, child rights, poverty and unemployment, women’s rights, and environment
and pollution.

3. Newsletters and booklets
After every few months, FHRI publishes abrief newsletter that describes in detail its activities and on-going programs.
It also makes booklets on human rights in
English, Urdu (the national language), as wellas Pushto and Sindhi (regional languages) versions. It is imperative that these materials arein appropriate regional languages to facilitate
effective teaching of human rights in the formal
education system of Pakistan. Copies of theliterature are given to participants attending
one-day workshops, one-week diploma courses,
and human rights media workshops, and to all
the local institutions. Lecture handouts of theresource persons and trainers are also given toparticipants as additional reference materials.

School Human Rights Days
FHRI organizes Human Rights Days inschools nationwide. Students spend a couple
of weeks preparing different activities including debates, speech competitions, poster
competitions, dramas, tableaus and lectures
on specific human rights subjects by FHRI
staff and resource persons. These activities areproven effective ways of instilling human rights
awareness among the students. The number ofparticipating young students and their enthusiasm for such activities indicate the sensitivity ofPakistani youth towards combating violationsof human rights. About 28,000 students havebeen sensitized through these activities.
For speech competitions, the students may
choose any of the following topics:• Concepts of Human Rights in 21st Century•	Vulnerable Groups in Society•	Women’s Rights in Pakistan• Child Rights• Rights of Minorities in Pakistan• All Human Beings are Equal• Human Rights and Islam• Peace & Tolerance in the Classroom• Treatment of Women in Jails•	Education of Women• Forced Marriages• Child Labor in Pakistan• Bonded Labor in Pakistan•	Street Children•	Educate Every Child• Freedom of Expression• Freedom of Association•	Education as an Investment• Child Marriages are Evil
•	Gender Equality Must Be Ensured•	Domestic Violence Must Stop
• The Evil of Honor Killings.
The students’ performances in speechcompetitions are so outstanding that often
difficulty arises in judging the first, second
and third place winners. Students of Class III
to Class IX participate in poster competitions.
The posters reflect violence against human lives
and dignity and demand for peace and honor.
Students participate in different tableaus anddramas in which human rights aspects likerights of women, children and minorities arehighlighted. Students also read poems and singnational songs.
Resource persons from FHRI give lectureson the topic “The Importance of HumanChanging the Mindset: Fazaldad Human Rights Institute  29

Rights in Students’ Practical Lives” in every
Human Rights Day program. These lectures
enable students to understand their rights andresponsibilities as members of society. They also
highlight Islam as a religion of peace and theneed for Muslims to adopt values of tolerance,
understanding and acceptance of differences inopinion.

Main obstacles to change
Human rights education is vital in sensitizing the younger generation so that a moretolerant and non-violent society develops. With
globalization, extremists in society have linked
up with others around the world, leading to
growing cases of international violence andterrorism often being traced to Pakistan. The
deeply disturbing influence of religious extremists can only be curbed by enhanced emphasison human rights awareness. Therefore teachers
have to be trained to help end this era of inquisition and bring about a rapid renaissance insociety. The main obstacle that FHRI normallyfaces in some conservative areas is oppositionof extremists, which is being overcome throughenlightenment and by urging them towards
moderation. With strong local contacts andscholars as well as with the employment oftechniques that FHRI trainers normally use
in their training methodologies, the efforts
toward enlightenment and moderation werequite successful.

the participants are so motivated that they want
to give their services voluntarily for future workwith FHRI. There are numerous letters fromdifferent districts and rural areas fully endorsing
FHRI’s work. These letters also indicate interestof the letter senders to get further involved withFHRI as resource persons in future programs.
The work of FHRI is very successful andwidely acclaimed. No other organization withproven track record, experience and ability
to conduct such programs as effectively on anationwide basis exists in Pakistan. Resource
persons and educationists, particularly fromrural areas have requested many more suchworkshops, as indeed have government education authorities from all the provinces.

Conclusion
Many countries today face the problem ofgrowing intolerance and violence against women. FHRI’s initiative on “changing the mindset”
is seen as unique in addressing this problem.
Representatives of governments and civil society
from several countries have expressed intereston this initiative and strong desire to introduce
similar initiatives in their own countries.
While changing the moral axioms of an
entire nation, and indeed of many nations, isa monumental task that will take generations
to accomplish, FHRI has taken the first step
towards sustained women’s protection in Pakistan through tangible, long-term, preventive
programs.

Positive feedback from partici pants
FHRI has trained more than 780 senior educationists and about 26,000 teachers throughout the country. The feedback from them isvery positive. Judging from the critiques given
at the end of each workshop, participants havebeen highly agreeable to the subject matter ofthe programs. They are very confident about
what they gain from the workshops. Many ofEndnoteiThis national action plan was developed in collaboration with UNESCO Islamabad office.