Welcome to the Observatory on Values and Education in Humanity, a global platform against violence, with a particular focus on the needs of our Infancy and Adolescence.

Through education in human rights and values, renovation processes, and the creation of educational and institutional guidelines, I’ve devoted my work to the empowerment of individuals, groups and institutions on working towards a greater collective harmony, acquiring psycho-social skills to develop “predictive attitudes and preventive cultures” against violence, towards humanity.

After more than 10 years developing research, conducting evaluations, advising organizations and counseling individuals, we wanted to develop a platform where organizations and particulars could find information and share experiences, a resource center focused on improving networking, a practical tool for a systematic search of best practices that predict and prevent violence in the educational community.

Taking into account we understand the “educational community” involves everything and everyone our kids and adolescents are exposed to, we first need to include in this project the families and the teachers; but also the coaches, school workers, police forces, policy makers, politicians, university professors and researchers; and further, the mass media, ICTs, institutions and organizations.

I hope you join us in this journey, combining efforts, sharing experiences and contributing to the development of quality programs, strategies, and materials towards the improvement of our human values, and through them, our “convivencia”.

Dr. Gonzalo Torquemada De La Hoz

Director

OVEHUM

The OVEHUM is an observatory devoted to gather and share information and practices regarding “values and education in humanity”, as a strategy to deal with, and prevent, all sorts of violence directed against kids and adolescents / teenagers.

This Observatory is the platform through which researchers, experts, organizations, students, families, teachers, etc. can share studies, experiences, expectations, concerns and knowledge related to all issues involved in this effort, directed to achieve a global humanized citizenship.

Guiding Principles

We are committed to the four Guiding Principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC):

Non-discrimination (Article 2): The CRC applies to all children, whatever their race, religion or abilities; whatever they think or say, whatever type of family they come from. No child should be treated unfairly on any basis.

The Best interests of the child (Article 3), must be the primary concern in making decisions that may affect them. All adults should do what is best for children, and think about how their decisions will affect children. This also applies to budget, policy and law makers.

Right to life, survival and development (Article 6): Children have the right to live. Governments should ensure that children survive and develop healthily.

Respect for the views of the child (Article 12): The CRC encourages adults to listen to the opinions of children and involve them in decision-making — not give children authority over adults. Article 12 does not interfere with parents’ right and responsibility to express their views on matters affecting their children. Moreover, the Convention recognizes that the level of a child’s participation in decisions must be appropriate to the child’s level of maturity.

The Statutes of the OveHum can be downloaded here (in Spanish by registation)

Our Philosopy

We understand our society is victim of a generalized climate of violence and aggression, and this is going against our humanity. The social and economic dynamics we have imposed ourselves in the last years, together with the massive development of new technologies and the related tools for communication, leave us in a standby status in which we’ve lost conscience of who we are, what we are doing and how.

In this context, we have to rethink our human values, our social and virtual dynamics, and the education we need in order to develop “predictive attitudes and preventive cultures” against this violent and aggressive environment that affects all, but particularly the most vulnerable of us, our kids and adolescents.