Human Rights Education as a Public Policy: The experience of São Paulo’s Municipal Secretariat Coordinating Human Rights Education

Abstract

This article is an experience report about coordinating municipal public policies on human rights education, in the context of the creation of the Municipal Secretary of Human Rights and Citizenship (SMDHC) of the City of São Paulo, Brazil. This paper presents the main results of four years of construction work and articulation of policies, with a view to a process that culminates in the publication of Municipal Law 57.503/2016, that creates the Municipal Plan of Education in Human Rights of the City of São Paulo. Thus, over a relatively short period of time, and through internal and external collective efforts, the SMDHC is built in the municipal framework, with significant real and symbolic achievements, and making municipal human rights policy not only fill a gap in the history of the Municipality, but also present transversal, innovative, courageous and challenging policies in the “symbolic heart” of the City of São Paulo.