Hold 70th Anniversary Human Rights Events

By Marybeth Gardam

With the torture and murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, children being imprisoned at the border, and the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, the 70th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—possibly the most important declaration ever penned—seems critical to study today.

Amnesty International produced a fabulous animated video teaching about the Declaration quite a while ago. It's animated and creative…and fast paced.

It is now available on Youtube.

This December 10th could be a good opportunity for branches to bring this video to the attention of their community, perhaps with a facilitated discussion of where the United States stands on the protection of human rights right now.

There is a month to plan an event, so if your branch is interested you might consider asking individual members to hold 'house parties' to show the video and have informal discussions with members of the community (not just with other WILPF members). You can discuss where WILPF is on human rights and our role in the creation of the United Nations via the League of Nations.

Each house party could be a recruiting opportunity, and if you put a donation jar out, you might also collect some donations for your branch.

Then members who hosted the parties could report at your next branch meeting how it went.

You can also direct people to the 70th Anniversary webpage #standup4humanrights, which provides other ideas for action, including an invitation for anyone to record themselves reading an article of the Declaration in their own language.

It's hard to imagine a time more uniquely suited to talking about Human Rights!

For more information, contact Marybeth Gardam at mbgardam@gmail.com