In 1950, the United Nations passed a resolution declaring December 10 Human Rights Day, a yearly opportunity for different organizations to bring public awareness to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the collective standard of living for everyone in the world. As a tribute, College of San Mateo hosted its 5th semi-annual Human Rights Day on April 16, 2014 to raise awareness in students, teachers, and faculties. This included posters on violations for different articles of the UDHR, skits made by fellow students based on abuses of human rights from different parts of the world, and public speakers who spoke about their experiences about being deprived of their human rights. But is awareness really enough to create a change? While people love to learn and to raise awareness, awareness is not equivalent to solving any problem. Raising awareness gives the participant and observer the feeling of helping without actually creating a change at all. A campaign’s success should be determined not on how many people attended a particular event, but the number of people who actually decide to take a meaningful action. In my opinion as a participant, College of San Mateo’s Human Right’s Day effectively promoted awareness, but it was not enough to create change because both participants and audiences were not internally motivated to learn, but instead was driven externally. One of the ways students promoted Human Rights Day was through creating posters and presenting them to the audience. However, while their posters were beautifully made with graphic images, exact to the point information, and some even had treats, was their real objective to create these to promote awareness, or just to get it done and an easy way to raise up their... ... middle of paper ... ...inds and allows us realize that we are now ready to go out to change the world for the better. While Human Rights Day is only a day for an opportunity to promote awareness with other people throughout the world, people should not stop there. Promotion of awareness should be implemented every day. No matter how big or small a campaign is, everything counts. However, promoting awareness is nearly not enough to influence people to go out and make a change in the world. College of San Mateo’s Human Rights Day is just a step in students’ life where they are just getting introduced to what is truly going on outside their small world. Maybe somewhere along the future, we’ll be in that same spot as the public speakers and teachers, promoting change about human rights to students. So one day, with enough awareness for change, violations to human rights shall come to an end.
the many things that can be learned from it, instead of looking at it passively. You grow
Throughout the history of mankind there have been numerous cases in which people were victims of oppression or hate. Among these cases the sole reasoning behind this oppression or hate being based on the perception of others. History has shown that society is responsible for labeling groups of people, generally these labels are misleading.
Baraka is a globally renowned organizer of the rising human rights movement in the United States. He has been at the forefront of efforts to apply the international human rights framework to social justice advocacy for more than twenty five years. As such Baraka has given human rights trainings for working class activists across the United States, as well as briefings on human rights to the US Congress. He has also given public speeches to several United Nations agencies, including the UN Human Rights Commission (precursor t...
Declaration of Human Rights: Dignity and Justice for All of Us. Accessed on October 29,
"Universal Declaration of Human Rights." Amnesty International USA - Protect Human Rights. 19 May 2009 .
"The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights." The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2014.
Every day, people are denied basic necessary human rights. One well known event that striped millions of these rights was the Holocaust, recounted in Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night. As a result of the atrocities that occur all around the world, organizations have published declarations such as the United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights. It is vital that the entitlement to all rights and freedoms without distinction of any kind, freedom of thought and religion, and the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being of themselves be guaranteed to everyone, as these three rights are crucial to the survival of all people and their identity.
“Human rights are not worthy of the name if they do not protect the people we don’t like as those we do”, said Trevor Phillips, a British writer, broadcaster and former politician. Since the day of human civilization and human rights are found. No one can argue against the idea that God created us equal, but this idea have been well understood and known after the appearance of many associations that fight for human rights as The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) that showed up in 1948. Human rights are those rights that every person, without exceptions, is born with. They are the most important human basic needs because no one can live a decent appropriate life without having those rights as a human. In fact, these rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948, was the result of the experience of the Second World War. With the end of that war, and the creation of the United Nations, the international community vowed never again to allow atrocities like those of that conflict happen again. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and rel...
"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights." Welcome to the United Nations: It's Your World. Web. 18 Oct. 2011
Not only do we need to understand the ‘issue’ or ‘societal problem’ that many people face and are impacted by every day, but we need to meet and work alongside those whose daily realities are shaped by injustices, while not creating any divides or barriers in the process. Everyday people are affected by the issues that organizations fight for or against, and once we realize how people-centered things like advocacy, outreach and service are, I believe young people will realize their call to action and their potent...
Knowledge is power. An example of awareness producing activism can be seen in the war against Iraq. When one learns of an unjust war being carried out they, now knowing the circumstances, will act as they will to stop the injustices occurring. The same can be seen in women’s activism. When people become educated on the topic of women’s rights, they come to understand the circumstances and can act accordingly to help stop the problems from carrying on. Anne-Marie O’Connor’s article about the maquiladora women in Mexico and their terrible working conditions brought awareness about, as well as Sam Dylan’s article on the mistreatment of these women.
Proponents of human rights argue that the concept’s universality rests in its non-discriminatory character- human rights are meant for every human being- rich and poor, white and black, men and women, young and old, leaders and followers, elites and illiterate, etc- and are all treated equally.
The “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” is a human right charter that Amnesty International focuses on. The articles in the declarations states the rights every human being in the world should have. An important article the freedom of expression, permits every citizen to speak without censorship and/or limitation. It is a basic human right that every citizen in the world should have but many don’t. In countries such as Burma and North Korea, citizens got beaten up or imprisoned when anything negative were said about the government. Even in developed countries, workers aren’t allowed to complain about their poor working conditions. To raise awareness and aide people about the situations, Amnesty Internati...
One of the challenges that Amnesty International faces is the plethora of human rights violations that need addressing. They are one organization, albeit a powerful one, but they cannot solve all the world’s problems. They will need to prioritize which issues are essential and which cases they should take on. (“Many rights, some wrong,” 2007) Amnesty International cannot fight all of the battles of the world on its own. There are too many individuals needing assistance, and too many causes needing support. They will need to decide which battles to fight, and which can wait for another day or another