Learning human rights from Anne Frank diary

What better way to instill the concept of human rights into school children than by making them aware of the life of Anne Frank through her diary! A new educational project in the city is doing just that for students and teachers.

Centred around the well-known German Jewish victim of the Holocaust, the learning venture has been brought to the city by the Anne Frank House, Amsterdam, and PeaceWorks - an initiative of The Seagull Foundation for the Arts (TSFA).

The first phase of the project that began Nov 30 focuses on Frank, Holocaust and human rights in the world today.

"The idea is human rights education through Anne Frank...analysing what happened during the Holocaust and putting it into today's context," Megha Malhotra of TSFA told IANS.

Born a German national, Anne Frank, who lived near Amsterdam in the Netherlands, documented experiences of her life during hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II in a diary.

The diary later became the best-selling book "The Diary of A Young Girl".

The book, published posthumously, is a first person account of her life from June 1942 (the year her family went into hiding) to August 1944, a year before her death from typhoid fever in a concentration camp.

Through an exhibition on Anne Frank, a peer guide training module (where students learn about Frank and act as guides to the exhibit) and putting together video clips on human rights issues pertaining to current scenario, the project will attempt to drive home the importance of human rights for school-goers.

A workshop for teachers on innovative training ideas to teach students about Anne Frank, the Holocaust and human rights is also a part of the project that will conclude Dec 13.