In the town of Criuleni, a group of teenagers is sitting in a circle looking at several photographs. Their task is to look at the images and find out which human rights are being violated. The more they’re looking at the images, the more they’re asking themselves what it means to have a certain right, and what it looks like when that right is taken away.
This particular session was run by Elena Petco, who works with young people at the "UNIT" Youth Centre in Criuleni. She’s conducting it as part of a series of trainings and follow-up activities running across the Republic of Moldova this year, built around one of the Council of Europe's most widely used tools - the COMPASS manual.
We looked at photographs together and found the right being broken in each one. At some point they weren't looking at pictures anymore, they were looking at their own lives," says Elena Petco.
What is COMPASS?
COMPASS is the Council of Europe's manual for human rights education with young people, used across Europe and beyond. It was originally developed for youth workers in non-formal settings, such as youth clubs and exchange programmes, where the focus is on personal and social development. Since its first edition, its use has extended into schools, universities and government training as well.
It was first published by the Council of Europe in 2002, under the Human Rights Education Youth Programme, and has been revised several times since, most recently in 2023. It now exists in more than 30 languages and has reached tens of thousands of youth workers, teachers and volunteers across Europe.
Every activity in the manual runs through four fixed phases: experience, debriefing, generalising, and application. First comes the experience itself, a role play, a simulation, a case study. Then a debriefing, where the group talks through what happened and how it felt. Then generalising, connecting that experience to human rights concepts and to the wider world. Finally, application, where participants take what they learned and act on it.
Alongside COMPASS, the Council of Europe also developed COMPASITO, a version of the same approach designed specifically for human rights education with children rather than teenagers and young adults. It follows the same logic: not information delivered top down, but experiences children can reflect on and build from.
Human rights education, as the Council of Europe defines it, isn't only about knowledge. It's about building the confidence and the habits that let someone recognise an injustice and do something about it, in their own school, their own neighbourhood, their own life.
In May this year, the Council of Europe Office in Chișinău, working with the National Youth Agency, ran an intensive four-day COMPASS training course. Twenty youth workers and youth leaders, from across the Republic of Moldova took part, coming from both formal and non-formal education settings.
Over four days they worked through core themes: democratic citizenship, inclusion, participation, and human rights, all through non-formal education methods rather than lectures.
The participants had to imagine that their rights were denied or put themselves into a position where they needed to defend those rights. The simulations paved the way towards discussing real life scenarios and situations when human rights were violated. This way, a training based on a manual quickly became one about people.
(Full article on the May course: Living, learning and acting for human rights with young people in the Republic of Moldova)
In Cahul, Nadejda Voloceai, director of the Municipal Youth Centre, ran an educational session for ten young "ambassadors." Through interactive exercises and discussion, the group worked through fundamental rights and freedoms, equality, mutual respect, inclusion and what it means to be responsible in a democratic society. "We gave young people a safe space to speak openly about rights and responsibilities," she said. The session gave participants room to share opinions and look at everyday situations differently and reminded everyone that human rights education isn't only about knowing principles. It's about building empathy and critical thinking, and getting involved.
In Glodeni, Nicoleta Luchian, Manager of the Glodeni Youth Centre, led an activity called "The Power of the Flower," built around the COMPASS unit on children's rights. Through drawing, discussion and reflection, participants worked out what a child actually needs to grow up safe, healthy and happy: family, education, protection, respect, love, health, friendship, and the freedom to have an opinion. "Teenagers understood that a safe home, a family, a good school, these aren't just words. They're rights," said Nicoleta Luchian. By the end, the young participants were sharing their own ideas about what it takes to respect a child's rights at home, at school and in the community.
In Criuleni, Elena Petco's "Play through Images" activity, described above, used the COMPASS methodology to help teenagers connect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to situations they could recognise from daily life.
In Taraclia, Diana Tanova of the Vasil Levski Youth Centre ran an interactive quest called "Human Rights Are About Us" for teenagers at the local secondary school. Through games and real-life scenarios, the teenagers worked out that human rights aren't an abstract subject, they're part of daily life. "Young people understood that human rights aren't some boring theories. They're part of our everyday life," she said.
And in Bubuieci, Victoria Avtudov, Deputy Director of the Vocational School, ran the very first follow-up activity to come out of the May training, together with colleague Silvia Bogonovschi. "Our first follow-up activity was a success. It's remarkable how quickly young people put what they learned into practice,".
The model COMPASS is built on is special because it works its way into the comunity through people who were trained once and who pass their knowledge forward.COMPASS equips young people with practical skills, so that a participant who spent a day spotting human rights violations in photographs is more likely to notice one in real life.
What comes next?
The Human Rights Education through COMPASS isn't stopping here. In October, the Council of Europe Office and the National Youth Agency will run a new COMPASS training, and the cohort will be national in scope, bringing together youth workers, education specialists and teachers from across the Republic of Moldova.
The goal is the same as it was in May: to prepare a new generation of people who can keep doing this work long after the training itself is over.
This work is carried out under the project "Youth for Democracy and Human Rights in the Republic of Moldova" part of the Council of Europe Action Plan for the Republic of Moldova 2025-2028, implemented in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Research and the National Youth Agency.
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