Human Rights Education: The 4th R
Educating for Economic Justice,
Vol. 9, No. 1, Spring 1998.
The Disappearing Land
This activity encourages participants to explore why we need a framework of rights and
responsibilities in times of conflict or crisis. This activity can be used in conjunction
with the action case above.
Number of participants: 20—30. (This activity does not work well with
very large groups.)
Age: senior elementary to adult.
Materials: 5-10 sheets of newspaper; a source of music; case study (see step 7
for an example). Make sure you have access to a room where the furniture can be moved. You
need to have a clear space where people can move freely.
Procedure:
- Place the sheets of newspaper here and there on the floor. The paper represents good
agricultural land.
- While the music plays, the participants move around the room (without stepping on the
paper) pretending to farm—sowing seeds, raking soil, pushing wheelbarrows, etc. When
the music stops, everyone must try to stand on the paper with one or both feet.
- Repeat step 2, removing a sheet of newspaper each time until all of the participants are
competing to stand on only one sheet of paper. At this point, the paper is usually quite
torn up!
- Bring the participants together as a group to look at what happened to the last sheets
of paper.
- Ask the group for examples of why good land would start to disappear. Some examples
might include environmental disasters, overuse, drought, armed conflict, land mines,
expropriation for government or commercial use.
- Discuss how the behavior of the group changed as the resources depleted. People usually
start to shove each other and a few toes get stepped on as people become increasingly
focused on getting their spot on the paper. Note: you should monitor the group to ensure
no one is harmed as the game progresses!
- Relate this activity to the case of Leticia Moctezuma Vargas in Mexico who opposed the
creation of a golf course on sacred land. Note: Teachers may wish to white out the numbers
of the UDHR in the text of the action, or even delete the relevant sentences, to allow
students to discover the rights at issue on their own. See question “c)” below.
Discuss the following questions:
- What is the connection between today’s activity and this case?
- What groups of people are in conflict over this land? For what purposes do they wish to
use or keep the land?
- Identify the articles of the UDHR that are being violated in this case.
- In this case, in what ways are civil and political rights important to the protection of
the economic, social, and cultural rights of the members of the Tepoztlán community?
- Who should be responsible for protecting the rights of the Tepoztlán community?
Contributed by Hilary Homes, Youth and Student Program Coordinator of Amnesty
International Canada (English-speaking).
