Activity 3: Playing with pictures
Materials needed:
- A collection of 20 – 30 photographs, numbered (they can be downloaded at this link: https://www.un.org/en/udhrbook/pdf/udhr_booklet_en_web.pdf )
- A large table
- A wall chart listing the Articles of the UDHR (you can copy it from here: https://www.coe.int/en/web/compass/the-universal-declaration-of-human-rights )
Duration:
30 minutes
Activity description in steps:
- Lay the pictures out on a large table.
- Tell participants to work individually.
- Read out one of the articles from the UDHR and write it up on the board/ flip chart.
- Ask participants to look at the photographs and to choose the one that, in their opinion, best represents the article.
- Then ask each person in turn to say which picture they chose and why.
- Make a note of which pictures were chosen; write the numbers on the board.
- Do four or five more rounds, naming different articles from the UDHR. (Choose a mixture of the civil and political and social and economic rights.)
- Start with a review of the activity itself and then go on to talk about what participants learned.
- Did individuals choose different pictures in the different rounds, or did they think that one or two pictures said it all?
- Did different people choose the same pictures in the different rounds, or did people have very different ideas about what represented the different rights? What does this tell us about how each of us sees the world?
- Review the list on the flipchart. Which photographs were chosen most often? What was special about these images? Why were they chosen often? Did the size or colour make a difference, or was it what was in the picture that was significant?
- Was any individual picture chosen to represent several different rights?
- Did anyone disagree with anyone else’s interpretation of a particular picture?
- Were there any photos that were never chosen? Could they nonetheless be interpreted to represent a human right? Which?