Opening Remarks

Hüseyin ŞİRİN, PhD

 

Dear  EDC/HRE Coordinators and distinguished representatives of the Council of Europe,

First of all, I would like to thank you for attending this important activity of our Project.

I am very happy to be with you here in İstanbul, which is the cradle of civilisations and which brings Asia and Europe together. Also I would like to express on behalf of the Ministry of National education that we are really pleased to host you here.

In May 2011, just before the Project started we hosted you in our country and we had the opportunity to have you here with us in the closing event of our Project.

Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education Project is the biggest and most important Project in this field in Europe in terms of its scale and scope. Therefore, the outcomes of the Project are interesting and exciting not only for us but also for other European countries.

As you watched in our short film yesterday, in very short time several activities that might have an impact on millions of students were implemented and positive results were obtained.

As expressed by the project’s slogan itself, our intention was to raise young generations as individuals who take active role in their community and who take human rights as the basis in their relationships from a very early age.

In the scope of the Project, we organised study visits to 11 European countries. Our teachers, school principals and Ministry officials had the opportunity to exchange experiences with their colleagues in these countries. I would like to thank you, my dear colleagues, for all your support to organise these visits.

Our Project is coming to an end soon. The activities we carried out in cooperation with you, and especially this very meeting today, constitute the basis for long-term cooperation in the future. I hope this collaboration will continue in different forms in the near future.

In almost every corner of the world, every day millions of students, teachers and school principals enter their school. As you know, depending on the magnitude of the school, it might be really difficult, but at the same time crucial, to ensure security, well-being and an appropriate environment for teaching and education. Bullying and dealing with violence are two important points that we are going to discuss during our two-day programme, I know that each one of us has significant experience and valuable ideas on these topics. I hope that the 23rd Coordinators’ Network meeting focusing on the ideas and experiences on these topics will be a success.

I would like to welcome you again with my best wishes.