The Human Projects

Intertwining a grassroots approach to global human rights education with STEM principles to build and rapidly scale human rights educational programs that empower young people to make a difference

Human rights are widely seen as one of the key paths to creating a better world, yet they are not taught to a significant portion of students. Even when human rights are included in curriculums, they are often presented as a document instead of as a tool that can be used to help the world. The Human Projects programs not only educate students about human rights but show students how they can use human rights to help their community. 

Young people make up over 40% of the world’s population and yet are rarely given an opportunity to participate in or lead positive change surrounding local and global issues that will define our future. Young people have an incredible potential to create positive change, but may not see themselves as changemakers and often do not receive the support they need to implement change. The Human Projects develops action-oriented educational programs for schools, classrooms, and nonprofits that empower young people to see themselves as changemakers and provides support to young people addressing human rights issues in their communities. 

Young people entering the workforce need to display an increasing number of key skills such as professional communication, financial literacy, teamwork, organization, conflict resolution, and leadership. The educational programs developed by the Human Projects provide participants with skills needed to thrive in a constantly evolving workforce.

Due to the significant political and logistical difficulties of implementing human rights educational programs at a national level, we use a virtual grassroots approach utilize social media and marketing strategies such as Google AdWords to connect and work directly with educators interested in teaching their students about human rights and young people passionate about creating positive change. 

The Human Projects is a global nonprofit using human rights educational programs to empower and support young people in developing projects that solve human rights issues in their community. one of the world’s largest youth run nonprofits in human rights

Education shapes the way we see the world. The Human Projects provides programs ranging from class lessons to multi-month service learning programs. Our innovative educational programs empower and support young changemakers in developing and implementing projects that solve human rights issues and provide students with job related skills.

Technology plays a key role in the Human Projects. Mapping and analytics software, python, VoIP, and automation allow us to track growth and impact of our programs, maintain communication with our educators and volunteers, develop programs, and build a virtual museum. We are in the process of developing a web app for young changemakers.

Powered by a global network of volunteers and educators, over 2 million students from 118 countries have participated in Human Projects programs. Participants have created projects including creating a radio show to educate their community about human rights, developing an awareness campaign about violence against children, and addressing food insecurity. By developing educational programs that empower young people, we pave the way for a more caring and connected world.

The Human Projects is primarily focused on serving young people (aged 25 or younger) around the world. Our educational programs use human rights and changemaking education to empower young people to explore the ways that they can improve their community and help them to see themselves as changemakers. 

Through our single lesson educational programs participants learn about human rights, discuss the impact of human rights issues in their communities, and think critically about the role they can play in solving these issues. Through multi-month programs, participants work together as a group to create projects that address a human rights issue in their community. 

Through programs such as Young Human Rights Changemakers and Teaching Human Rights Fellowship, the Human Projects provides knowledge necessary to develop a community project and provide young individuals with marketable skills such as leadership, organization, critical thinking, collaboration, and finance. We also use a modified engineering design review process to encourage ethical changemaking through meaningful community stakeholder engagement throughout the process of creating change. This process of developing a community project helps students learn how to think critically through a complex problem and work collaboratively to solve it. Students take on significant responsibilities and leadership roles in these projects. After completing the program, students have developed and applied new skills to a community impact project they can list on their resume.

The Human Projects is led by Alexandria Brady-Miné. Alexandria is a social entrepreneur and human rights activist (recognized with awards including Jane Goodall Institute Fund II Fellowship, Rhodes Scholar Finalist, National Liberty Museum Young Hero, and Florida’s Top High School Volunteer). She started her first "mini-nonprofit" in elementary school and continued developing social impact projects throughout her time in middle school. In 2017, she founded the Human Projects to empower other young people to lead positive change in their communities. Alexandria is also an engineering student and researcher. A 2022 Goldwater Scholar, she currently researches life support devices in the Edelman Lab at MIT and enjoys using engineering principles to empower young people to create change. 

The Human Projects team is unique because it consists of two integral parts: the International Team and the Global Network. The Human Projects International Team is a group of passionate volunteers who work together to run the Human Projects at a global level. The International Team is responsible for building Human Projects Programs and providing training and support to the Global Network and educators running Human Projects Programs. The majority of the Human Projects International team are young changemakers who have had significant involvement in or launched their own youth-led social good projects. As a nonprofit focused on creating globally relevant educational programs, our team represents a wide range of countries, cultural backgrounds, and political ideologies. Team members come to the Human Projects from a variety of unique backgrounds. For example, Michael, our prior Director of the Teaching Human Rights Fellowship, is a medical doctor from Nigeria whose expertise provides a unique perspective when developing programs and guiding participants. The variety of backgrounds, experiences, and expertise uniquely positions the Human Projects team to provide impactful human rights educational programs that encourage young people to become changemakers. 

The Global Network is a group of volunteers and educators working with members of their own communities to run Human Projects Programs. This unique structure allows them to identify programs suited to the unique needs and challenges of the community. 

Despite financial constraints, the Human Projects has been able to have a significant global impact. This is in large part due to a network of volunteers committed to spending their time and effort delivering Human Projects Programs in their communities. From the Executive Team, to volunteers on the ground, to the many educators the team collaborates with, the Human Projects’ global impact is due to the commitment and dedication of thousands of volunteers and educators.

The Human Projects is built and led by young changemakers from a variety of cultures, political ideologies, and backgrounds. As an organization working with young people around the world, we are dedicated to having a leadership team representative of this diversity. Our leadership team includes individuals based in 16 countries. 

At the core of the Human Projects model is a deep commitment to engaging directly with the individuals participating in these programs and implementing suggestions. Through the Human Projects Education Network, we work closely with educators and program participants to adapt and improve our educational programs to meet the needs of the student participants and educators. All educators and program participants are encouraged to reach out with feedback. 

After receiving feedback from educators, programs were re-designed to be easily accessible to educators who have limited access to printers or the internet in their classroom. When several educators noticed that their students were excited to learn about changemakers their age and requested more examples of young changemakers in their country, we used this feedback as the catalyst for developing a global public archive of young changemakers.  A project that began as a tool to assist educators has turned into the Young Changemakers Archive, a virtual museum sharing information on the impact and stories of young changemakers around the world. https://www.youngchangemakersarchive.com/ We are thankful to have a network of engaged educators and young changemakers whose feedback improves current programs and helps to determine the direction of future programs.  

The Human Projects is innovative because we use a nonprofit model intertwining a grassroots approach to global human rights education with STEM principles to build and rapidly scale human rights educational programs that empower young people to make a difference. This model allows students to understand the foundation of the issues that they are working to solve through conducting a needs analysis in partnership with their community and work closely with their communities to develop a solution. Using the engineering design review process as a framework for solving human rights issues allows for the issues to be solve in a way that is ethical and effective. 

Over the next year, we plan to serve 3,000,000 young people. We will maximize the impact of current programs while developing new programs particularly focused on the power of technology.

To achieve our impact goals, we plan to launch several new programs. Through our program STEM for Human Rights, we are developing lessons to explore the impact of STEM on human rights and how young changemakers can incorporate new discoveries to create positive change in their communities. We are also creating an open source textbook on human rights and young changemakers working to achieve them. The textbook is currently being edited. Through the Conversations with Young Changemakers program, we will empower the next generation of young leaders by bringing changemakers to classrooms as guest speakers. We are also in the process of developing a web app for young changemakers to provide multiple resources including access to volunteers, lessons on key skills, mentorship, and community feedback. 

As an organization, we are dedicated not just to creating change for the young people we work with, but also to having a positive impact on their communities and laying the groundwork for a better world. Our commitment to meaningful stakeholder engagement extends to the projects created by our program participants. Human Projects developed a modified engineering design process used by program participants to ensure that community members and stakeholders are integrally involved in the development and implementation of projects designed to create positive change in their communities.

A major barrier to quantifying the impact of human rights education and youth leadership in nonprofits is the lack of access to data. It is extremely difficult to determine the number of young people running community impact projects or registered nonprofits. To our knowledge, there is no comprehensive data on the number of students who learn about human rights and what they are specifically taught. We are partnering with MIND, an Ecuador-based organization with expertise in artificial intelligence and big data to develop these datasets. Once completed, they will be publicly available for anyone to use. 

Technology plays a key role in the distribution, expansion, and monitoring of the Human Project’s work. Mapping and analytic software, MATLAB, python, and survey software are integrated to determine the growth and impact of our programs. Team management software, VoIP, and automation allow us to organize and maintain contact with volunteers and educators running programs in remote communities. Adobe creative cloud and web design software allow us to develop professional educational materials and websites. Our Educators Portal and Clubs Portal allow us to quickly share updated programs and training materials. Automation streamlines the process of onboarding and maintaining contact with thousands of educators and volunteers. 

We developed the Young Changemakers Archive, a virtual museum dedicated to collecting and publicly sharing information on the impact and experiences of young changemakers around the world. 

The Human Projects has impacted over 2,103,022 individuals in 118 countries. Over the next year, we anticipate we will serve 3,000,000 young people. 

The Human Projects has achieved this impact through a variety of programs. Through our classroom-focused educational programs such as Learning Her Story, we provide a variety of human rights educational programs to educators, nonprofits, community groups, and individuals free of charge. The Young Human Rights Changemakers program is focused on Partnering with educators to bring human rights centered service learning to classrooms. Through the program, participants work together to understand the human rights issues their community is facing and create a class project to help address the issue. The Teaching Human Rights Fellowship is focused on leaders in human rights education in their communities. Fellows work closely with the Human Projects team to bring together groups of community members to learn about and discuss human rights. The Young Changemakers archive is a virtual museum dedicated to collecting and sharing information on the impact and experiences of young changemakers. The Stories of Changemakers Podcast is a journey through the stories of changemakers to  discover the spark that ignited their passion, their greatest triumphs, and most meaningful lessons. 

Note: We are having an issue with inputting all 118 countries in the box above. A map & list of countries where we currently work is available here: https://www.thehumanprojects.com/about-us

The largest barrier that we face to achieving our goals next year is access to funding. The reach and impact of Human Projects programs are limited by the availability of funds. Although we have been able to continue to expand our impact despite limited funding, as we continue to expand our programs and our reach, financial constraints have become more challenging to overcome. 

The Human Projects did not follow a typical growth trajectory for an international organization. Typically, global organizations either scale up from local projects or are started by individuals with connections to and experience with large funding sources. The Human Projects model of an International Leadership Team and thousands of volunteers and educators delivering programs allowed us to scale rapidly from 5 countries to over 100. This unique growth presents significant funding challenges. We are not centralized enough to apply for moderately sized funding (grants, pitch competitions, business support) locally or statewide. We also do not have the ability to compete for the majority of the funding opportunities typically given to global organizations. We must find a way to bridge the gap between a “startup” nonprofit and a stable nonprofit with consistent funding. 

The Human Projects works with an extensive network of school, nonprofit, and community partners to deliver innovative educational programs to individuals around the world. Through the Education Network, consisting of 127 nonprofits, 53 schools, 23 classrooms, and 24 community groups, we receive feedback on Human Projects programs. We work closely with our partners to obtain feedback on the educational programs that we develop in order to make modifications to improve the effectiveness of programs to ensure that these programs are providing needed information in the most effective format. We have worked with several thousand educators and volunteers to provide over 213,000 human rights lessons through Human Projects Programs. 

We are currently working with MIND to develop datasets necessary to understand the current state of global human rights education and youth leadership in changemaking. 

We partnered with Girls Place Inc. to develop Standing Tall, a program focused on empowering minority and low income female changemakers. Students met weekly with their mentors to receive academic guidance and assistance in creating a human rights project that positively impacted the community. Students received micro-grants up to $200 to complete their projects. Projects focused on a range of girls and women’s rights issues including distributing menstrual products to homeless women, raising awareness of modern slavery, and developing an art exhibit on human rights.

We partnered with the BRICC Foundry to run an International Day of the Girl Campaign where we shared the stories of girls and women around the world who have dedicated their time to helping others. 

We partnered with Fair World Builders, a Haiti based nonprofit building a world without poverty, illiteracy and social discrimination, to provide the Education in Our Community Program to schools in Haiti. Children learned about their human rights and their responsibilities in creating a more peaceful world.

Our goal is to address two major issues: 1. Many young people want to create positive change but lack access to the knowledge necessary to create change. 2. There are limited free, high quality human rights educational resources that are not religiously or politically affiliated.

Designed by our team of educators and young changemakers to be easily integrated into an existing curriculum, we offer a library of flexible human rights curricula, lesson plans, posters, videos, and other educational resources that encourage young people to make a difference. Covering a variety of topics, age levels, and lengths and developed for offline accessibility, these resources were created to meet the needs of every classroom. 

We offer both formal and informal training to prepare educators to integrate human rights with their existing curriculum and support their students in creating positive change. Our 8 week Certificate in Human Rights Education combines skills-development webinars, independent reflection, and peer-discussions to prepare educators to lead human rights educational programs that inspire students to help others. 

We strive to develop non-political and non-religious resources that present factual information on human rights and encourage students to develop their own thoughts and conclusions. Our team represents a variety of political, religious, and cultural backgrounds working together to build nuanced human rights educational programs and resources for all classrooms.

In order to ensure that we are meeting the needs of educators and students, we conduct surveys and one-on-one feedback sessions with educators, students, and other program participants to ensure that the programs we develop meet the needs of those we work with.  

The Human Projects is not a revenue generating organization. Although we have explored the option of monetizing some educational content, we feel that it is counterproductive to our mission to require educators to pay money or apply for a waiver to access quality educational materials. The vast majority of educators using our materials do not have the technical resources to apply for a waiver or the financial resources to pay for educational materials. 

The majority of the Human Projects funding has come from pitch competitions, fellowships, and grants. As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic limited the availability of funding sources, we have begun to shift towards individual donations. Although we have considered monetizing some content, many of the educators we work with around the globe have such limited resources that they would not be able to access our programs if they were not provided free of charge. To be consistent with our human rights focus we are committed to ensuring that these resources are available to all who need them. Monetizing these programs would likely exclude those who need the programs the most.

To reach financial sustainability, we will continue to build our individual donor network. We will also work to develop relationships with corporations to obtain corporate in-kind or monetary donations. We have begun developing a framework to partner with groups such as college clubs to fundraise for the Human Projects. The Human Projects is also continuing to apply for grants focused on education, mentorship, and youth career skills development. 

In our growth trajectory, we have adjusted program planning depending on available funding. The flexibility of our program model has allowed us to scale up or down depending on the availability of funds but having a more consistent funding source would allow for more long range planning and enable the Human Projects to significantly increase our efforts to improve the world and create lasting positive change.