Tools for Teachers

The Canadian Red Cross helps disseminate knowledge of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) to academia, teachers and youth. We organize events across the country to educate Canadians on the importance of IHL and to encourage dialogue on issues such as child soldiers, refugees, gender-based violence and attacks on civilians, hospitals and schools.

Forced to Fight: is an interactive online resource designed for students between the ages of 13-18. The resource helps facilitate understanding of IHL and humanitarian issues and allows the user to experience what it is like for young people living in situations of armed conflict around the world. Teachers can use this resource in collaboration with the lesson plans available in the teaching resources links or they can choose to use it as a stand-alone activity to trigger critical thinking and classroom discussion on issues related to armed conflict.

Humanitarian Education Curriculum Guidebook: The new Humanitarian Education Curriculum Guidebook is a living guidebook aimed at high school educators consisting of ready-to-use lesson plans and engaging activities to integrate concepts of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) into the classroom. The Guidebook contains an introduction to IHL and is organized by the 4 themes of the accompanying online, interactive resource ForcedtoFight.ca, namely: Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV), Child Soldiers, Refugees and Forced Migration, and IHL and the Environment. New lessons in the Guidebook were written by Canadian teachers.

Exploring Humanitarian Law: This 5 module toolkit with ready to use lesson plans helps teachers as they introduce the basic principles of International Humanitarian Law to students in secondary schools. A wide range of explorations are available with complimentary multi-media resources.

Canada & Conflict: A Humanitarian Perspective: Designed by and for high school teachers, this educational toolkit was developed to inform and empower youth to take action toward alleviating human suffering. Using Canadian examples, the revised 2016 edition is a complete toolkit comprised of 6 modules that touch on issues of International Humanitarian Law such as war crimes, refugees, neglected crises, gender inequality, humanitarian principles, mechanisms for justice and youth engagement. Canada & Conflict is directly complementary to academic subjects such as civics, social studies, history, geography, law, language arts and the humanities and is available in both English and French.

Facing Fear: With ever increasing conflict and violence around the world, the events of the 21st century have caused anxiety and concern among Canadian youth. Facing Fear is a flexible toolkit aimed at helping young people aged 5-16 be prepared for disasters and deal with the aftermath of war, terrorism and tragic events, whether they occur at home or elsewhere in the world.

Children and War Toolkit: This toolkit is designed to engage young people in the issue of children affected by conflict. It explores the realities children face in conflict zones and the basic knowledge needed to take action.

Weapons and War Toolkit: This toolkit helps young people understand issues related to international humanitarian law and the use of weapons, and the impact weapons have on civilians during and after armed conflicts.

Paxium: Paxium is a role-playing activity that explores civil conflict and international humanitarian law. This exercise helps students understand the complexity of armed conflicts and the difficulty in humanitarian decision-making in crises.

Media Resources

Canadian Red Cross: This YouTube playlist from the Canadian Red Cross includes testimonials from our field practitioners and teachers highlighting the importance of student engagement with education about International Humanitarian Law.

Professional Development

The Canadian Red Cross offers in-person trainings and additional online workshops for teachers. These professional development opportunities provide teachers the opportunity to learn from legal experts, humanitarian practitioners and other educators about International Humanitarian Law. Teachers learn how to implement our ready to use resources into their courses while addressing complex issues as that arise in conversation with students. Visit our events page to view our upcoming opportunities.

Contact ihl-dih@redcross.ca to learn more about how to bring our trainings to your school board.

Upcoming events

EHL educator trainings are held across Canada for high school teachers.
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Past events

Find out more about our past IHL events that you may have missed. Recordings are available for some past events.
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For more information about our IHL programming, contact
ihl-dih@redcross.ca