The Advocacy Lab partners with high schools with limited or no access to human rights education. We offer under-resourced high schools a one-year, weekly, in-class program that integrates creative educational programming and advocacy skills training around human rights. Students in these schools are often from marginalized communities, where exposure to violations and social injustices are more likely.
The Advocacy Lab trains college, graduate student- and professional interns to serve as AdLab Liaisons. AdLab Liaisons are our arms and legs. They partner closely with a faculty sponsor to implement the AdLab program in each member school. Our interns typically represent exceptionally diverse backgrounds and have a deep commitment to human rights and experience working with youth.
We introduce young people to a wide range of human rights issues, connecting concerns in their own communities with situations happening around the world. Our goal is not to influence students to take on a particular cause, but rather to cultivate a broad awareness of human rights and a critical mindset with which they can form their own opinions, pursue their own passions and make informed decisions. Each year, we update our core curriculum to introduce ten current issues, which in the past have included:
The Advocacy Lab emphasizes providing students with opportunities to take immediate action on the issues they care about, and on building creative, advocacy, social and civic skills they can apply throughout their lives. In addition to ensuring a full understanding of human rights, we enable students to act on what they learn – this lies at the heart of our mission. Following the educational phase, each school group designs and conducts an advocacy campaign around an issue of its own choice. We promote efforts integrating students’ creative talents and interests into their actions using a wide range of media,including music, photography, spoken word, film, journalism and technology. We also support the development of basic leadership, organizational and civic skills through student-led planning of school assemblies and community forums, letter-writing drives and meetings with elected officials.
The Advocacy Lab connects students with advocates of all different professional backgrounds, as well as individuals who have been impacted by human rights violations. Throughout the year, we place a high priority on bringing in guest speakers and facilitating field trips and participation in real-world campaigns and events. Moving forward, we plan to formalize an Advocacy Lab NGO Partnership Program. Each Advocacy Lab school group would partner closely with an existing organization and/or campaign focused on their selected issue. Students could then learn directly from experts while supporting likeminded organizations.
The Advocacy Lab serves as a resource to local and global NGOs. We collaborate with local and global NGOs who are interested in engaging young people, but who do not have the dedicated resources to do so, by raising awareness around their activities and attracting potential support for their causes. This would be magnified upon the realization of our planned NGO Partnership Program.
Through fostering a sense of community, the Advocacy Lab strives to make human rights an intrinsic part of youth culture. Another planned cornerstone of our program is to bring students from different member schools together via All AdLab Events. As we grow in New York City and beyond, we plan to host special events that will allow students working on different issues to share their knowledge and experiences. Initially united through technology, students from different cities and countries could eventually also come together through a national or international exchange program. After completing our yearlong program, we will encourage AdLab students to continue their involvement with the organization as peer leaders, interns, volunteers and staff.