Isiah and William did a great job yesterday. I really love this program and received tons of positive feedback through out the day in the hallways. I can't believe you guys are not booked up for every available day for the next ten years. People do not know about this film/program. If they did, it would be shown all the time. Thank you so much - Francesco Visone

Since the mid-1990s, HRWIFF has organized theatrical screenings of selected festival films for high school audiences in New York City and Los Angeles. These events, which feature audience discussion with human rights experts and filmmakers, have been well attended over the years by enthusiastic high school teachers and students alike. While teachers have recognized the festival as an important source of information (human rights are rarely addressed in school), they expressed a desire for more planned opportunities and available media resources through which to explore human rights issues within curriculum areas such as history, High School 2 and media literacy.

More importantly, teachers reported that bringing human rights concerns into a classroom setting would ideally allow students to make deeper, sustained connections through research and discussion, and provide a valuable occasion for them to formulate critical responses to complex issues raised by the films. No small task for teachers to take on, it was clear from the start that these goals would require thoughtful support. As one New York City high school teacher noted early on, "Rarely do teachers bring the discussion of human rights issues into the classroom. The teachers themselves are not very well acquainted with the issues and the typical high school curriculum does not invite very much innovation." In response to the challenges above, HRWIFF has worked to extend the educational and social value of these screenings by collaborating with schools, educators, filmmakers, artists, youth producers, and human rights experts to bring human rights into the high school classroom.

In designing the High School Project, HRWIFF crafted goals that are simple but essential to furthering dialogue with youth about human rights issues internationally and at home:

• To develop and sustain a human rights presence in high school and after-school settings through film, video, photography, and web resources.
• To craft film and resource guides for educators to support important and sometimes difficult conversations in ways that engage young people to respond critically to human rights concerns.
• To demonstrate how artistic media such as film and video can facilitate personal expression and raise political and social awareness.

To accomplish these aims, HRWIFF convened educators, youth workers, and filmmakers during the summer to identify potential pilot participants, films that would be appropriate for classroom use, and strategies for working with schools. From the outset, several logistical and content-oriented questions were considered important to address in order to help the program develop in a manner useful to a broad range of high schools across the country. These included:

• Depending on how a film was used (i.e.: stand-alone or integrated into a lesson), how much time and planning was required?
• In preliminary discussions teachers voiced a need for a "constellation" of resources on a topic or film. What kind of support materials would they need? Would a guide for each film be worthwhile?
• Human rights issues can be difficult to navigate in classroom discussion. What kind of student responses should a teacher prepare for?
• What kinds of follow-up activities would be helpful?

With those questions in mind, we realize that every film, video, photograph or web site project must be specifically tailored to each teacher/facilitator, class and curriculum. Just as important, the filmmaker/creator of these projects must be brought to the classroom or the theater for direct interaction with young viewers - in order to further develop both the human rights themes and the artistic techniques required to make provocative and beautiful work.

This program is supported by The Youth Initiatives Program of the Open Society Institute (OSI.) For further information on OSI's Youth Media and Communication Initiative please visit their website: www.soros.org/youth To learn more about the films we have available and the schools currently participating in the program, please visit the links below.

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