{"id":3582,"date":"2026-10-03T11:21:37","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T11:21:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dto.world\/?page_id=3582"},"modified":"2026-10-03T12:16:41","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T12:16:41","slug":"dare-to-overcome-india","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dto.world\/index.php\/dare-to-overcome-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Dare to Overcome India"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Dare to Overcome: pairing human rights with business skills in India<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Josh Cass, <\/a>FoRB in Education Case Studies<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dare to Overcome\u2019s Business Skills & Human Rights Curriculum<\/a>, piloted in partnership with the School of Education at Maharashtra Institute of Technology World Peace University (MIT-WPU) in Pune, India, offers a distinctive variant within the FoRB Education landscape. Dare to Overcome, a corporate engagement initiative of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, has chosen to pair individual human rights, including freedom of religion or belief, with a corresponding soft business or workplace communication skill. The result is a curriculum that frames human rights education, and FoRB specifically, as directly relevant to students\u2019 future employability and civic life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Background and Aims<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project\u2019s origins lie in Dare to Overcome\u2019s wider work connecting business, peace, and human flourishing. Following earlier work by Dare to Overcome in India, opportunities emerged to connect education, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), business leadership, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16, on peace, justice, and strong institutions. The curriculum adapted existing human rights education resources to incorporate business skills and peacebuilding components, making it appealing to schools and speaking to the future employment contexts students will enter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pilot was delivered across ten schools in Pune, reaching approximately 3,500 students. The curriculum was developed and implemented in partnership with MIT-WPU\u2019s School of Education, with faculty members and student teachers engaged directly in curriculum adaptation, teacher preparation, and classroom delivery. The pilot\u2019s central finding was that human rights and FoRB education can be successfully integrated into formal educational settings when connected to practical life and workplace skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The primary aim of the curriculum is to help secondary school students (aged fourteen to nineteen) understand human rights, including FoRB, through active classroom learning. Central to this is the idea that rights are universal, belong to everyone, and carry responsibilities toward others. Alongside this, students develop practical skills relevant to future work and civic life, including active listening, collaboration, curiosity, verbal communication, conflict resolution, problem-solving, analysis, teamwork, networking, and resilience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The secondary aim is to build peace, social cohesion, and respect for human dignity by linking human rights education to practical business skills. The curriculum is built on the premise that human dignity, equal rights, and peaceful coexistence can flourish alongside differences (including religion and belief), and that diversity should be understood as a foundation for peaceful and prosperous societies rather than an obstacle to them. The project was also designed with scalability in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The curriculum favours participatory, classroom-based pedagogy. Each lesson pairs a specific human right with a specific business skill. For instance, the Right to Equality is paired with Active Listening, Equal and Inalienable Rights with Collaboration, and Freedom of Religion or Belief with Curiosity. Methods used to deliver these paired lessons include storytelling, songs, games, role-play, group discussion, worksheets, peer learning, interviews, reflection journals, student presentations, and problem-solving exercises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alignment with FoRB Education Principles<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Human rights sit at the centre of the curriculum. The first lesson introduces the UDHR, explains the concept of universal rights, and teaches that human rights belong to every person simply by virtue of being human, alongside the corresponding idea that rights carry responsibilities. FoRB is presented as one such universal right, linked directly to Article 18 of the UDHR as well as to relevant provisions of the Indian Constitution. Reference is also made to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, reinforcing the idea that children and young people are themselves rights-holders whose dignity and development deserve protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The curriculum combines human rights language with locally resonant themes, including peace, harmony, dignity, constitutional values, and Unity in Diversity, helping students connect abstract rights principles with everyday life. Rather than treating human rights as a purely theoretical subject, the curriculum encourages students to apply them through practical activities, workplace skills, and real-world situations, reinforcing the curriculum\u2019s broader logic that rights are best understood when they are practised rather than merely studied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lesson which focuses on Freedom of Religion or Belief aims to increase awareness of different religious faiths, beliefs, and practices, while helping students recognise shared values such as peace, compassion, empathy, dignity, and service. Students are encouraged to explore similarities and differences among traditions through structured activities emphasising mutual respect, curiosity, and peaceful coexistence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freedom is explored through concrete classroom experiences. Students examine what it means to be free, what responsibilities accompany rights, and how rights can be restricted through discrimination, exclusion, bullying, child labour, or restrictions on belief and expression. Students discuss questions such as whether they can recall a time they were unable to express their beliefs, how to respect the beliefs of others while practising their own, what values most people hold regardless of religion or belief, and how respecting the beliefs of others improves life more broadly. Through guided discussion and activity, students practise asking respectful questions, learning from others, and engaging constructively with people whose beliefs differ from their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ensuring take up and engagement<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The curriculum has been designed for adaptation to different educational, cultural, and national contexts, while retaining its core human rights and FoRB foundations. Because it integrates human rights education with practical business and workplace skills, it fits naturally within subjects such as social studies, civics, life skills, citizenship education, business studies, and career-readiness programmes, rather than requiring a dedicated new curriculum slot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several steps were identified as central to securing engagement within formal educational settings: identifying a credible education partner (in this case MIT-WPU\u2019s School of Education); adapting an existing human rights resource into a curriculum specific to India; aligning lessons with the UDHR, Indian constitutional provisions, and relevant educational frameworks; pairing human rights with a practical skill valued by schools, employers, and families; piloting the curriculum across multiple schools; gathering feedback from principals, teachers, student teachers, and students; developing teacher-facing manuals and activity resources to support wider replication; and creating a model capable of being adapted for future implementation in other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, because large Indian companies are required by law to invest in CSR, the curriculum is positioned to engage with the business community to secure sponsors to fund expansion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dare to Overcome: pairing human rights with business skills in India Josh Cass, FoRB in Education Case Studies Dare to Overcome\u2019s Business Skills & Human Rights Curriculum, piloted in partnership with the School of Education at Maharashtra Institute of Technology World Peace University (MIT-WPU) in Pune, India, offers a distinctive variant within the FoRB Education … <\/p>\n

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