Education International has warmly welcomed the announcement that the 2016 Edward O’Brien Award for Human Rights Education is awarded to Human Rights Education Associates’ Founder, and former Education International’s research coordinator, Felisa Tibbitts.
Education International (EI) also commends Tibbitts for her longstanding and prominent work on human rights education.
Both scholar and activist, Felisa Tibbitts is currently a Lecturer in the Comparative and International Education Program at Teachers College, Columbia University, USA. She co-founded the NGO Human Rights Education Associates, which she directed from 1999-2011, and co-founded Human Rights Educators USA.
She has published practical resources on curriculum, program development, and evaluation on behalf of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, UNICEF, UNESCO, OSCE/ODIHR, the Council of Europe, and non-governmental organisations such as Amnesty International and the Open Society Foundations. Her scholarship has appeared in numerous books and journals including the Journal of Peace Education, Intercultural Education, Prospects, and the International Review of Education. Previously she was an adjunct faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the UN-mandated University for Peace. She remains affiliated with the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice in South Africa.
Established in 2015 in memory of Edward O’Brien, pioneer human rights educator, the O’Brien Award honours an individual and an organisation that have made an outstanding contribution to human rights education in the United States. Tibbitts is the recipient of the award for individual achievement in the field; and Jean-Louis Peta Ikambana will accept the organisational award on behalf of the DC Human Rights Learning Project, an initiative of the American Friends Service Committee. This year’s awards will be formally made on 3 December during the annual conference of the National Council for the Social Studies in Washington, DC, USA.