Every year, the Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience Award celebrates individuals and groups who speak out for justice. The 2016, award will be shared between world-renowned musician Angélique Kidjofrom Benin and three African youth activist groups: Y’en a marre from Senegal, Le Balai Citoyen from Burkina Faso and LUCHA from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Angélique Kidjo. Credit: Pierre Marie Ziimmerman.
Grammy-winning artist Kidjo fled her homeland Benin in the 1980s after being pressured to perform for the country’s repressive regime. In a 40-year-career spawning 12 albums, she has been a prominent campaigner for freedom of expression and for the education of girls in Africa, as well as against female genital mutilation.
The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and the Kreuzberger Kinderstiftung, the scholarship sponsor, recognize that there continue to be barriers to entry into the human rights profession that go against the spirit of our work, i.e. when economic or social considerations prevent potential participants from taking part. Therefore they offer young people with limited financial means and/or from underrepresented geographic and social backgrounds the chance to gain professional experience in human rights work.
The call for applications is aimed at students and young professionals (max one year after graduation) who wish to apply for ECCHR’s Legal Training Program but whose personal and financial situation would make it impossible to participate on an unpaid basis. Candidates from the Global South as well as refugees and others with a migration background are especially encouraged to apply.
On 28 March 2016 the New York based Human Rights Foundation strongly condemned the convictions and sentences handed down by a court in Angola against a group of 17 youth activists for reading a book that advocates nonviolent resistance to dictatorship. The court declared the activists — including prominent Angolan rapper Luaty Beirão — guilty of “rebellion against the president” and “planning a coup,” sentencing them to prison terms that range from two to eight years. Beirao, also known by his stage name Ikonoklasta, has been an outspoken critic of the government, calling for a fairer distribution of the southern African state’s oil wealth. His term is five-and-a-half years.
When looking for ways to engage young people in human rights work, this is an idea: Amnesty International UK has been running for many years a series of media awards. In 2010 it added human rights awards for YOUNG reporters, photographers, reporters, campaigners, fundraisers and poets. Read the rest of this entry »
At the 2015 Oslo Freedom Forum, on 27 May 2015, Tunisian human rights defender Amira Yahyaoui talks about the global youth as an underrepresented force in many governments. She draws attention to the fact that while the world’s citizenry is increasingly young, the global leadership remains old. She criticizes the lack of representation of women and youth by reminding us that these so-called “minorities” are, in fact, majorities in the world population. If we don’t fix this problem, she argues, more and more young people will be driven to extremist groups like the Islamic State where they are given the opportunity to lead.
An example of how (making) film can teach young people to become human rights defenders. This comes Essex county in the USA.
The Speak Truth To Power student video competition encourages school students to become engaged in human rights. The video contest is sponsored by New York State United Teachers and the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights and is based on Kerry Kennedy’s book Speak Truth To Power. Students who participate in the contest must choose one of the individuals identified by the RFK Center Human Rights and create a three- to five-minute short film. The contest is looking for student films that utilize creative storytelling to teach others about a human rights issue. The format is open to documentary, stop motion, narrative, digital photo essay or other innovative explorations that involve filmmaking components.
Two Bloomfield Tech students, Christopher A. Rodriguez and Julio Villegas, won the first place in the video contest with a five-minute film about genocide and focused on Holocaust survivor and human rights activist Elie Wiesel. This feat was proudly reported in the local media on 21 April:
“Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr. and the Essex County Vocational Technical School District …… are all very proud of Chris and Julio for winning the top prize in the RFK Human Rights Center’s student film contest. ……..It was important to share their film with our Essex County audience to raise awareness of this emotional issue and to highlight the exceptional work of our students”.
The first public premiere of the film was made Tuesday, April 21st during the afternoon celebration in Newark. In addition, the will be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on Thursday, April 23rd.
Elected and school officials shared their pride about the students’ accomplishment:
“I want to thank our students for their courage and their hard work,” Essex County Vocational Technical School Board President Father Edwin Leahy said. “Every time you speak the truth, you don’t get a crowd like this. You have to continue to do what is right even if you don’t have a lot of support”.
“Today is an amazing celebration of education,” said Bloomfield Tech Social Studies Teacher Jennifer DaSilva, who gave the students’ the assignment. “Both students have flourished in our Diaspora class. Their film is extraordinary and helps raise awareness about the tragedies taking place in the world today”.
Also sharing words of encouragement were Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver, Freeholder Patricia Sebold, Sheriff Armando Fontoura and Chief of Staff Phil Alagia.
For those who don’t realise how much is going on at the local level in support of human right, here is a little story from Canada. Alan S. Hale in The Daily Press of 24 March describes an evening at Timmins High School:”Local defenders of human rights to be honoured“.
Tom Baby and Toree Doupont hold up with winning posters from the anti-racism poster contest held in local schools during the campaign leading up to the Evening of Applause scheduled at Timmins High Wednesday night
The inaugural Evening of Applause is being organized by a recently-formed committee made up of the local school boards and post-secondary institutions, as well as the Timmins Friendship Centre and the Timmins Local Immigration Partnership. The committee’s goal was to reproduce the successful campaign which has been taking place every year in North Bay for the past 25 years.
“We decided that we wanted to start that project up here in Timmins. So in September, we brought together representatives from all the different education institutions and formed a committee. So this committee has been putting together all the different events to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (which was on March 21,)” recalled Tom Baby, the Timmins Local Immigration Partnership coordinator.
For the past three months, the committee has been doing a variety of awareness raising activities in local schools, including in-class instruction and an anti-racism poster contest. The contest drew many submissions, but in the end, the winners were Lindsay Johnston in Grade 3, Emily Morreau in Grade 6 and Cassandra Lapointe in Grade 7. All three students received a $50 prize for their posters. [Anita Spadafore of Amnesty International; Dan McKay who is a local advocate for people with seeing disabilities and founding member of the Barrier Elimination Action Committee, and Ed Ligocki who is the executive director of the Good Samaritan Inn homeless shelter.]
During the Evening of Applause, the first three honourees will be inducted onto the Human Rights Wall of Fame, which will be a new permanent fixture at the Timmins Public Library.
Recipients of the honorary awards given by Manusher Jonno Foundation, standing behind, with the guests sitting in front, in the capital’s Bangla Academy yesterday, at the award giving ceremony marking Human Rights Day. Photo: Star
A nice little item left-over from Human Rights Day 2014. How human rights awards play at the local level:
Ten human rights defenders from the grassroots level, two eminent social workers with international recognition, and a female football player were given honorary awards by Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF) yesterday. The works of the activists focused on land rights, prevention of violence against women, child rights, and the rights of the indigenous people. The 10 grassroots activists were Jharna Ray, Madhobilata Chakma, and Nomita Chakma of Khagrachhari, Birendra Sangma of Mymensingh, Shafique Ullah of Noakhali, Kachhim Uddin of Tangail, Kananbala Gupta of Narail, Umme Kulsum Ranjana of Bogra, Kalpana Tirki of Rajshahi, and Rahela of Dinajpur.
Two social workers Jharna Dhara Chowdhury, chief of Noakhali’s Gandhi Ashram, and Angela Gomes, executive director of Bachte Shekha, were also honoured along with Bipasha Mali, a young footballer who was recently called to play on the national women’s football team.
Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury said, “They don’t work for recognition. Yet when we value their contributions, it makes us proud and we get inspiration to work.”
80 human rights defenders from more than 40 countries gather in Montreal from 8 to 27 June for the International Human Rights Training program organized by Equitas, the Canadian not-for-profit organization founded in 1967. The program is being held on the campus of John Abbott College in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue. Read the rest of this entry »
Via Protection on Line I got this fairly detailed report by Katherine Ronderos done for AWID on the situation of women human rights defenders in Sudan. It tells how the Sudanese people, inspired by the Arab spring and led by women and youth, took the streets of Sudan demanding regime change in 2011. Authorities violently cracked down on these demonstrations, detaining more than 150 women, who were sexually abused or tortured, injured and beaten in the protests. Since June 2012, new protests against the Sudanese regime have intensified violence against women human rights defenders.
Angélique Kidjo. Credit: Pierre Marie Ziimmerman.
Source: Vice News
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 