Overview 2.4.2 Ombudswoman Gertrude Brinek The past year brought a number of changes. The AOB‘s preventive activities unfolded to their full effect. It became apparent that the AOB is generally wellprepared to perform its new tasks assigned on 1 July 2012 both organisationally and in terms of content. In this context, I would like to thank the former members of the Austrian Ombudsman Board, Ms Terezija Stoisits and Mr Peter Kostelka, who both completed their terms at the end of June 2013, for their excellent work and close co-operation. This allowed the new team at the AOB to continue its work seamlessly after 1 July 2013. I believe that it is especially worth mentioning that federal and regional administration, as well as the directors of private institutions and facilities now subject to our visits, were consistently co-operative and made every professional effort to rectify any deficits identified and to launch improvement initiatives. It was also new for the AOB that we are now legally required to offer education. This particularly relates to the human rights area. Not least because of my professional background, I focused strongly on young people. New publication on young people’s rights The day before the International Day of the Child, the AOB presented its most recent publication “Junge Menschen und ihre Rechte” (Young People and Their Rights). This set a new focus on raising the awareness of young people of human rights and socio-political issues. In my opinion, human rights regrettably remain nothing more than a political claim until they have found a “home” in people’s lives and have led to solid consequences. The rights of children (as specific human rights) must also be tangible and lived in everyday life. They only become effective for the long term once children and adolescents know their rights and can deduce the consequences. As an author and ombudswoman, I also hope that my book will make an active contribution to establishing human rights. Close co-operation with educational institutions We warmly invite pupils and students from across Austria to visit the AOB as part of their curriculum (and especially during their studies to become a teacher) and to get to know human rights work in theory and in practice. We also provide each school group with our publications for a closer look at the rights of the child and at human rights in general during lessons. Several classes already made use of this service during the reporting year, and I am hoping that interest will widen further in the coming years. To supplement this, I intensified my co-operation with the working groups “Teachers for Political Education”. We are currently developing a concept for a teaching module called “Political education”. The aim is not only to further promote the clarification and discussion of essential elements of the legal state but also to introduce the activities of the AOB. I would like to thank the Polis Centre at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Human Rights and the representatives of NGOs for their co-operation so far, especially in the area of the rights of the child. 26