Bildebeskrivelse.
Moving Day by Norman Rockwell, 1967.
Retrieved from: nrm.org November 12, 2013.
This year’s topic is Civil and Human Rights, and it is inspired by the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. Articles 1 and 2, signed in 1948, state that (paraphrased): We are all born free and equal. We all have our own thoughts and ideas. We should all be treated in the same way.
These rights belong to everybody, whatever our differences. The preparation material includes factual and fictional texts as well as pictures that present aspects of Civil and Human Rights.
The factual texts provide examples of people with “strong voices” who fought brave battles for
Civil and Human Rights. Abraham Lincoln declared slavery illegal and Emmeline Pankhurst put women’s civil rights on the agenda. Rosa Parks challenged American prejudice by refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. Martin Luther King Jr. gave the famous I Have a
Dream speech to draw attention to racial discrimination and civil rights in the US. Young Malala
Yousafzai touched the whole world when she survived being shot in the head for standing up for the rights of girls to have an education. Nelson Mandela endured spending over two decades in a
South African prison for his beliefs. The last factual text defines some important concepts.
In the fictional texts, you will read about young people facing challenges and hardship. The brothers Deo and Innocent from Zimbabwe have to seek shelter elsewhere because of war. The
Native American boy Arnold Spirit (Junior) tries to escape from the vicious circle of poverty. A boy nicknamed Armpit makes some bad choices, and Bobby, Addie, Joe and Skeezie struggle to be recognized by other people.
Past or present, real or fictional, the purpose of the preparation material is to inspire new ideas and thoughts and give information about the topic. You can also look for more information.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was the 16th President of the United States. He issued the memorable Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.
Retrieved from: hdwallsize.com November 12, 2013.
( The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy
P. Basler, Volume VIII, "Speech to One Hundred Fortieth Indiana Regiment" March 17, 1865, p.
361.)
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
(1929-1968) was a civil rights leader famous for his I Have a
Dream speech, given outside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. in 1963.
Bildebeskrivelse.
Retrieved from: officialmlkdream50.com November 12, 2013.

(Retrieved from: brainyquote.com November 12, 2013.)
Rosa Parks (1913-2005) is famous for the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955. The
U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregation illegal on the city's bus system in 1956.
Bildebeskrivelse.
Retrieved from: ushistory.org November 12, 2013.
(Retrieved from: brainyquote.com November 12, 2013.)
Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928 ) was a British suffragette who fought for women’s right to vote and for female civil rights.
Bildebeskrivelse.
Retrieved from: biographyonline.net November 12, 2013.
(Magistrates’ Court, London October 21, 1908)

Bildebeskrivelse.
Malala Yousafzai giving her speech at the United Nations headquarters in New York, 2013.
(from Malala Yousafzai’s speech before the UN General Assembly in 2013)
Retrieved from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23282662. November 12, 2013.
NEW YORK (AP) — The thing about Nelson Mandela was that he made the rest of us want to be almost as noble as he.

Bildebeskrivelse.
Nelson Mandela at a music festival in Tromsø in 2005. Retrieved from: nettavisen/no.
December 10, 2013
Imprisoned for 27 years, the anti-apartheid leader emerged from prison not filled with hatred, but courtly, humble and good-humored.
It is easy to forget what South Africa had become by the early 1990s as part of its white minority struggled to hang on to the three centuries of privilege made possible by apartheid.
Part of the privilege of being around Nelson Mandela in the 1990s was to see the joy he spread whenever he entered a township or a small settlement in one of the homelands set up by apartheid governments to separate black from white South Africans.
As the cars carrying Mandela and his supporters jolted along the dirt tracks, they soon would be joined by school children running alongside as fast as they could, shouting for "Madiba, Madiba," the clan name that he is affectionately called. Finally, when the cars could move no farther,
Mandela would slowly walk through the people, smiling and waving and occasionally raising his fist in an ANC salute with a different brightly colored and patterned shirt on every day. Inside there would be dancing, cheering and singing of his name, until everyone went quiet to hear his speech.
He could be firm with his followers, — saying they were embarrassing the cause when they tore down posters of opponents or heckled members of the opposition. "People will believe that we are unfit for government," he would warn followers when they showed any signs of hooligan behavior.
He was loyal as well to the Third World and to the countries that had formed the anti-apartheid front. Even when he was firmly embraced by the U.S. government, he would not forsake those who had befriended his cause at a time when the world's richer and more powerful countries were still supporting apartheid South Africa.

And he could be brutal with his political opponents, but he seized their hand for a unifying handshake at the end.
After his swearingin for president in Pretoria, as South Africa’s first democratically chosen leader,
Mandela slipped easily into the role of president.
In a meeting for a group of foreign journalists when he was then 77, he recounted all the affairs of state and problems of the country that were keeping him busy, but made clear that he was still energetic and still relishing the burden of leading his nation and serving as an icon for Africa and for the cause of truth and reconciliation everywhere.
"At the end of the day, I have often felt that I have spent my time very fruitfully," he told us with his typical understatement and a slight twinkle in the eye.
Adapted from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/06/nelson-mandela-inspiredothers_n_4396247.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

Brothers Deo and Innocent have to escape from the district of Gutu in Zimbabwe because soldiers are killing their family. Deo survives the first steps of his escape because he finds money that was hidden by his late mother Amai.
In my nose I smell something terrible. It is worse than burnt sour milk, worse than dog crap, worse than a day - old dead rat.
It is the smell of fear.
I stare at the jeeps. I can see no drums.
A great wail of agony fills the air. We know what is coming and can do nothing to stop it now.
“We have to leave. The bad soldiers might come back.”
I grab the leather pouch Grandpa Longdrop made for me. It doesn’t seem possible that I will ever play soccer again, but I pick up the pouch anyway.
I know where Amai hides our money. I find several fifty million dollar notes, a few more hundred million dollars. There is no time to count it all. It’s not much, but it will buy us some food. The only problem is how to carry all the notes.
I stuff them into the leather pouch. The money fills out the ball nicely, and I find a piece of string and sew up the patch. I toss the ball into the air. Nobody will know I have a billion dollars in my soccer ball.
We walk away from Gutu without looking back. This is no longer a place where people live.
This is a place where my people died.
Deo brings his brother Innocent to Captain Washington, a police officer and a friend of the family.
The soldiers appear on Washington’s doorstep and the brothers are forced to flee to South Africa.
The journey is dangerous and they get to the border hiding in a truck.
We arrive at Beitbridge late in the afternoon.
Innocent picks up the soccer ball and tosses it to me. He knows what I am thinking.
“Play, Deo. I’ll watch you. Don’t worry.”
Out of the hordes of people going about their business, a few watch me. The boys watch me, their eyes on my ball. They are like me. One of them steps forward.
I kick the ball to him.

More boys leave their families. Soon there are ten, eleven, no, twelve of them standing awkwardly around. Waiting.
The boy with the skin of coal s ays, “Aziz Mohammed. We play?”
I turn to the other boys and point to one of them. He is tall, looks strong. He will make a good defender. He runs over.
“Mujuru,” he says. I guess it’s his name.
I turn to Aziz. “My name’s Deo.”
He grins at me and looks carefully at the boys standing around. He points at a lean, wiry boy.
“You. Sinbaba.” The boy called Sinbaba trots over and stands next to Aziz.
I choose. He chooses. And so it goes on until everyone who has shown interest is part of the game. Then, standing to one side, I see the boy with the crutches and one leg. I remembered him from the baobab tree. His people must also have been heading for the border. He steps forward as if he has made up his mind. Thirteen pairs of eyes turn toward him. Surely he can’t expect to play with us? There is a fire in his eyes. His mouth is hard, determined line in a face of stone.
He stares at me as if he can read my thoughts. I don’t know what makes me do it, but I throw the ball toward him. He lurches forward, plants both his crutches, swings forward with his good leg, and kicks the ball so hard that it sails over our heads. Sinbaba jumps and catches it.
“I’ll take you,” I say. He doesn’t smile or thank me but moves to my side as if this is what to be expected.
The game is on.
At first the play is scrappy. There is no discipline. It’s typical of a game with newcomers— everyone wants to show what he can do.
I notice that some of the adults are watching us now. Some of the older men have gathered on the side, cheering on the boys they know and shouting instructions.
I focus on Aziz. There is some trick that he does with the ball that I haven’t worked out yet. As he comes toward you he sort of jumps over the ball and then twists it around his ankle, and before you know it, he’s past you and the ball is at his feet.
We play until the insects are buzzing around the tall, tall lights of the border post and the night has crept up on Beitbridge. All is forgotten as the ball moves from player to player, foot to head, head to goal.
In this moment I am all I ever want to be. I am free of worry, released from fear, unable to think anything but this moment. I fly from one side of the pitch to the next, I weigh up my opponents, test their weaknesses, wait for an opening, calculate the flight of the ball, guess what my teammates will do next. There is no yesterday or the night before; there is no tomorrow or the day after that. There is only now, a soccer ball, players running from side to side, and the goal at the end of the pitch.

Excerpt retrieved from Now is the Time for Running by Michael Williams, pages 15, 32, 33, 62, 64, 65,
66, 69 and 70, 2011.

This text is about a young Native American boy called Junior who decides to do something about a difficult situation. In this excerpt, he struggles with helping his dearest friend, the dog Oscar.
Do you know the worst thing about being poor? Oh, maybe you’ve done the math in your head and you figure:
And sure, sometimes, my family misses a meal, and sleep is the only thing we have for dinner, but I know that, sooner or later, my parents will come bursting through the door with a bucket of
Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Original Recipe.
And hey, in a weird way, being hungry makes food taste better. There is nothing better than a chicken leg when you haven’t eaten for (approximately) eighteen-and-a-half hours. So hunger is not the worst thing about being poor.
And now I’m sure you’re asking. “Okay, okay, Mr. Hunger Artist, Mr. Mouth-Full-of-Words, Mr.
Woe-IsMe, Mr. Secret Recipe, what is the worst thing about being poor?”
So, okay, I’ll tell you the worst thing.
Last week, my best friend Oscar got really sick.
And sure, Oscar was only an adopted stray mutt, but he was the only living thing that I could depend on. He was more dependable than my parents, grandmother, aunts, uncles, cousins, and a big sister. He taught me more than any teachers ever did.
Honestly, Oscar was a better person than any human I had ever known.
“Mom,” I said. “We have to take Oscar to the vet.”
“He’ll be all right,” she said.
But she was lying. Her eyes always got darker in the middle when she lied. She was a Spokane
Indian and a bad liar which didn’t make any sense. We Indians really should be better liars, considering how often we have been lied to.
“He’s really sick, Mom,” I said. “He’s going to die if we don’t take him to the doctor.”
She looked hard at me. And her eyes weren’t dark anymore, so I knew she was going to tell me the truth. And trust me, there are times when the last thing you want to hear is the truth.

“Junior, sweetheart,” Mom said. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have any money for Oscar.”
“I’ll pay you back,” I said. “I promise.”
“Honey, it’ll cost hundreds of dollars, maybe a thousand.”
“I’ll pay back the doctor. I’ll get a job.”
Jezz, how stupid was I? What kind of job can a reservation Indian boy get? I was too young to deal blackjack at the casino, there were only about fifteen green grass lawns on the reservation and the only paper route was owned by a tribal elder named Wally. And he had to deliver fifty papers, so this job was more like a hobby.
There was nothing I could do to save Oscar.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
So I lay down on the floor beside him and patted his head and whispered his name for hours.
Dad pulled down his rifle and bullets from the closet.
“He’s suffering,” Dad said. “We have to help him.”
I wanted to punch my dad in the face. I wanted to punch him in the nose and make him bleed. I wanted to punch him in the eye and make him blind.
Dad just looked at me with the saddest look in his eyes. He was crying. He looked weak.
I wanted to hate him for his weakness.
I wanted to hate Dad and Mom for our poverty.
I wanted to blame them for my sick dog and for all the other sickness in the world.
But I can’t blame my parents for our poverty because my mother and father are the twin suns around which I orbit and my world would EXPLODE without them.
And it’s not like my mother and father were born into wealth. It’s not like they gambled away their family fortunes. My parents came from poor people who came from poor people who came from poor people, all the way back to the very first poor people.
Seriously, I know my mother and father had their dreams when they were kids. They dreamed about being something other than poor, but they never got the chance to be anything because nobody paid attention to their dreams.
Given the chance, my mother would have gone to college.
She still reads books like crazy. And she remembers everything she reads.

Given the chance, my father would have been a musician. He plays the guitar and the piano a little bit. And he has the old saxophone from high school that he keeps all clean and shiny, like he’s going to join a band at any moment.
But we reservation Indians don’t get to realize our dreams. We don’t get those chances. Or choices. We’re just poor. That’s all we are.
It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor. You start believing that y ou’re poor because you’re stupid and ugly. And then you start believing that you’re stupid and ugly because you’re an Indian. And because you’re Indian you start believing you’re destined to be poor. It’s an ugly circle and there’s nothing you can do about it. Poverty doesn’t give strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.
Excerpt retrieved from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, pages 8,
9, 10, 11 and 13, 2009.

In this text, Armpit is sent to a juvenile detention camp, called Camp Green Lake, for totally losing his temper.
During his first week at Camp Green Lake, close to three years before, a scorpion had stung him on the arm, and the pain had traveled upward and settled in his armpit. It had felt like there was a hot needle twisting around inside him. He’d made the mistake of complaining about how much his armpit hurt. The pain eventually went away, but the name stuck.
He had been sent to Camp Green Lake because of a bucket of popcorn. He had been trying to ease his way along a row of seats at the movies. He was only fourteen at the time, and was making his way past a couple of high school seniors when one of them stuck out his foot. They yelled at him for spilling popcorn on them, and he demanded that they pay for the popcorn, and by the time it was all over, the two older boys were in the hospital, and he was on his way to
Camp Green Lake Juvenile Correctional Facility.
After leaving Camp Green Lake, he first spent six months at a halfway house in San Antonio, where he attended school and received counseling. There were sixteen boys at the halfway house. The counselor there told them that the recidivism rate for African American boys was seventy-three percent. That meant, according to the statistics, that eleven or twelve of them would be arrested again before they turned eighteen. The counselor said the rate was even higher if you didn’t finish high school.
Excerpt retrieved from Small Steps by Louis Sachar, pages 2, 3 and 4, 2006.

In “The Misfits” you can read about three young boys and one girl, who are being called names at school. The consequences are that other students may form an opinion about them without actually knowing them.
These are our names.
Bobby.
Addie.
Joe.
Skeezie.
These are our names. But they are only names. They don’t tell you who we are. We have other names, too. Names we have been called, names we have been given. We figured it out. Between us, we have a total of seventy-two names, other than the names you see here. These are names we have been called since kindergarten. The ones we remember, anyway.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.
Anybody who believes that has never been called a name.
This is what I think about names. I think that names are a very small way of looking at a person.
When I was in third grade, I got the name Fluff because I ate peanut butter and Marshmallow
Fluff sandwiches every day for lunch and also, I guess, because I started putting on weight. But nobody knew why I was eating those sandwiches. I didn’t even know myself until this year, when I figured it out. It was because my dad made one for me for lunch one day and he told me, “These were your mom’s favorite kind of sandwich.” My mom had died the summer before and I missed her. And so from then on I wouldn’t eat anything but peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff sandwiches for lunch. But every time I did, somebody was bound to call out, “Hey Fluff!” and that hurt.
Another thing I think about names is that they do hurt. They hurt because we believe them. We think they are telling us something true about ourselves, something other people can see even if we don’t.
Lardo fluff fatso faggot fairy dweeb mutant freak retard loser greaser know-it-all beanpole geek dork....
Is that me? We think. Is that who I am?
If you haven’t been called any of those names, think about the ones you have been called. Is that who you are?

The No-Name Party wants to put an end to name-calling in school. We want to start with a No-
Name Day, in which we all think about the names we call each other and stop using them – just for a day. Maybe we’ll think about more than names and stop talking to each other like some of us are less than others of us. But, hey, I don’t want to get too ambitious here. Let’s just start with names. No name-calling. For one day. Then we can see where it goes.
Excerpt retrieved from The Misfits by James Howe, pages 247 – 249, 2003.

What is a stereotype?
People are often defined as members of groups, depending on their culture, their religious beliefs, and their origin or looks, such as the colour of their skin, their size, hairstyle or clothing. Often this definition of groups also includes certain qualities. These qualities can be positive or negative. If these definitions are exaggerated, we call them stereotypes.
Stereotypes can also be found in books (even school textbooks), comics, advertisements, newspapers or movies.
From a stereotype to a prejudice.
If a person or a group is judged based only on stereotypes and not as an individual or group of individuals, we are dealing with a prejudice. This means that an opinion has been formed about a person or a group without actually knowing him, her or them.
Such views and ideas most often have nothing to do with reality (for example that all Norwegians are good skiers), and they are also often unfavourable, hostile and offensive. Primarily, prejudices are used to treat someone unfairly. Prejudices deprive people of the opportunity to show who they are and what they are capable of achieving.
What are stereotypes good for?
Stereotypes and prejudices seem to make the world simpler and less complicated. You can for example pretend that you know everything about the other/s and need not ask any questions. However, as a result, a meaningful dialogue and a real understanding have become impossible.
What can we do against prejudices?
Prejudices die hard and are therefore hard to deal with.
But there is no need to lose hope: no one is born with prejudices. They have been learnt and can therefore be unlearnt. Before judging a person, ask him or her to explain why he or she has done whatever is under discussion. Remember that you surely would not like being judged without being listened to.
Retrieved from Living in Democracy . EDC/HE Vol. III p. 37. Council of Europe (adapted version).