To share experiences and accumulate ideas for project developement we gathered film clubs’ moderators at our conference “Documentary films as an instrument of media education in human rights” that took place in Kyiv in March, 28-29 as part of DOCUDAYS UA XIII International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival.

On the first day of the conference program project coordinators and film clubs’ representatives from different Ukrainian regions, including people from the East and Crimea, shared their working experience and spoke about their problems as well as successes.

Olena Kutsenko, coordinator of a network of permanent Docudays UA human rights film clubs on media education in schools, universities, youth NGOs, euroclubs and libraries in Crimea: “We’ve been organizing Docudays UA screenings since 2006 and are very glad to have opportunity to show these wonderful films in our film clubs. We want to work in this direction so much, but unfortunately not everyone can do it due to different obstacles. Today we have six official Docudays UA human rights education film clubs. We keep working and are sure that there will be more of us soon.”

Among the conference’ guests were first deputy head of Ukrainian State Film Agency Serhiy Neretin and Head of Department of Social and Psychological work with inmates of the SPS of Ukraine Colonel of internal service Igor Andrushko.

“I would always support such a project because I think it is cool. Of course there is a dream for every SPS establishment to have a film club. Even if there won’t much viewers I understand the huge importance of this project ” - said Igor Andrushko in his speech.

A lecture by known film critic and producer Andriy Alfiorov “History of documentary film: 120 years of history in 60 minutes. Truth or probability?” also took place at the conference. Oleksandr Voitenko, education coordinator at UHHRU (Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union) in formal education, all-Ukrainian educational Program “Understanding Human Rights” expert told about human rights as a system of values for modern democracy.

The second day started with group work of participants. The first group explored film clubs’ potential in developement of the culture of human rights; the second learned how to use video effectively in work with children; the third group worked on strategies of developement of film clubs and Docudays UA film archive; the fourth worked with human rights media education problems within SPS system of Ukraine.

In the end group members presented their work to collegues.

The second conference day was also memorable for the presentation of Information Resource Centre “Human rights space”, where it’s director Nataliya Bimbirayte and her team told about prospects for cooperation of Human Rights information сentres and councels and Docudays UA film clubs network.

Stanislav Topolnitskiy from Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine was the conference’ special guest: “Why did we support this project and will gladly continue to do it? There are two main aspects for this: Human rights media education and direct results of the festival work. Docudays UA really is a known and respected platform. Human rights education includes not only theoretical knowledge of human rights but also studying them in the context. This is exactly what happens at the festifal and it’s  film clubs - creating context. Discussions and film screenings help people understand human rights values.”

Video of the first conference day will be available at the website in section “Experience”. Materials of the conference reports will also be published at the website.