Human Rights International

Myanmar – broad-based human rights training

Myanmar is facing enormous challenges in the area of civic education, especially when it comes to human rights.For decades, the country’s military junta forbade any public discussion of human rights. Since the 2010 elections, the country has been cautiously opening up to the outside world. Brave young organisations have begun to promote a debate on democracy and human rights. They organise seminars that further basic human and civil rights and shape public awareness of these rights. At first, such seminars could only take place in urban centres such as Yangon or Mandalay. However, since the special elections in 2012 that brought Aung San Suu Kyi into the political reform process, the seminars have been allowed in many parts of the country.

The Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom has been involved in making Myanmar more open and democratic since 1989. It has supported local organisations since 2010 and has helped them to implement their civic education projects. In the meantime, educational measures which form part of several large-scale EU projects have taken place in all regions and federal states of Myanmar. Even some of the most remote areas in the states of Kachin and Chin were covered. These areas experienced
this kind of public education for the first time. “This project’s massive geographical reach and the large number of people reached are both remarkable,” said Katrin Bannach, FNF project manager in Myanmar. “So far, we have educated more than 27,594 people from extremely diverse personal and professional backgrounds.”