Professional Master Governance and Human Rights: Sophie Stammler

Maya is confused: after a conversation between her cousins about human rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, she wonders what it's all about. With the help of her mother, her friend Elias and his father, she finds out.

The children's book "Maya and Human Rights" was written by Sophie Stammler. The Berlin native wrote it as part of her extra-occupational study programme Governance and Human Rights. The book is aimed at children between the ages of five and 12 and tells of the universality of human rights. The diversity is also reflected in the book's illustrations. "Ten different artists have interpreted Maya and the other characters," explains Sophie Stammler. She wrote the texts: "I wanted to provide easy access to the topic of the Convention on the Rights of the Child." A small edition of the book has now been published. Profits from sales will benefit Unicef. Sophie Stammler dedicates the book to her daughter, who is now one year old.

The Professional Master's in Governance and Human Rights is her second Master's degree. Sophie Stammler initially studied Interdisciplinary Russian Studies at the University of Potsdam. She spent one semester at Baikal State University in Irkutsk, where she took courses in marketing and management. Over a period of five years, she spent a total of two years in Russia. During her Master's degree in Applied Cultural Studies and Cultural Semiotics, also in Potsdam, she spent a semester in Australia. There she focussed on intercultural communication, a focus that accompanied her throughout her studies.

"I'm very interested in dialogue and interaction between people," explains Sophie Stammler. This is why she also supported exchanges between young people from Germany and Russia as a language facilitator.

Her talent for communication earned her the position of Communications Coordinator at Viva con Agua: "I was doing an internship in the public relations department at the time and was asked to place an interview with Viva con Agua initiator Benjamin Adrion," recalls Sophie Stammler. Instead of writing to editors, she phoned them straight away and was lucky: a few weeks later, Adrion was sitting on NDR's Red Sofa. This was followed by her first job at the Viva con Agua Foundation. Later, she was part of the team responsible for setting up the Villa Viva social guesthouse in Hamburg. In April, following her parental leave, she will be starting again at the Viva con Agua Foundation as a project manager.

She wrote her Master's thesis with the renowned Professor of International Relations Julian Reid from the University of Lapland. He teaches on the Governance and Human Rights programme at the Leuphana Professional School and researches the concept of political resilience, i.e. the resilience of states and societies to crises. Sophie Stammler applied the theory to the relationship between Russia and NATO in her Master's thesis. She has not ruled out a subsequent doctorate.

During her studies at the Leuphana Professional School, she focused on academic work: "I took a very interest-driven approach to my studies and investigated, for example, the connections between human rights and analogue and digital communication or the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)." The course content on project management helped her to organise her book project.

The distance learning programme Governance and Human Rights (M.A.) comprises a total of three block seminars in Lüneburg, but otherwise takes place online. Students prepare and revise the content by working through course material and using online learning tools such as webinars and an online learning platform: "I found the online live sessions particularly good. The exchange with the other students was enriching," says Sophie Stammler.

The Master's programme teaches governance principles and their application in order to promote the establishment and protection of human rights. The courses are taught exclusively in English. The Master's programme is a continuing education programme. These characteristics make the programme unique worldwide.

The Master's programme is recommended by the Human Rights Education Network of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and is listed as an official training programme in the field of human rights.