Justice for all

This week, I want to highlight an amazing organization called The Enough Project for the great work they are doing. They are relatively well known, especially in the field of human rights, so you might have heard of them. Enough aims to end genocide and crimes against humanity. They work not only to stop atrocities that are currently occurring, but also aim to prevent future genocide through analysis, advocacy, and activism.

Enough conducts intensive field research in countries plagued by genocide and crimes against humanity, develops practical policies to address these crises, and shares sensible tools to help empower citizens and groups working for change. Our initial work has focused on grave challenges in a number of African countries: Sudan, eastern Congo, northern Uganda, Somalia, Chad and Zimbabwe.

One of their interesting recent campaigns is Come Clean 4 Congo, a video contest aiming to raise awareness about the link between our cell phones and the violence in Congo. In Eastern Congo, sexual violence is often intensified by wars over “conflict minerals,” - ores that produce tin, tungsten, and tantalum - metals that end up being used to build our electronic devices. Enough also has a Raise Hope for Congo campaign which provides lots of excellent information about the conflict and provides helpful tools for budding activists to take action. There’s so little awareness about what’s actually happening in Congo, so hopefully these campaigns will help put Congo on the radar.

One reason I chose Enough is because a couple of weeks ago, I talked about a common stereotype of Africa: the entire continent is often viewed as one huge country, and people often don’t have a good understanding of the situations occurring in different countries (myself included!). So the best thing you can do is educate yourself, and you can do so by checking out their Conflict Areas page which clearly describes the major conflicts taking place today in Africa. And after you’ve learned about the issues, Take Action and do something about it - whether it’s writing a letter to your representative, signing a petition, or educating your friends about the issues; however little you contribute, it’s important you do.

The Enough Project is doing excellent work raising awareness about important issues and conflicts that are often ignored by the mainstream media. I’d highly encourage you to at least explore their website and learn something new today.

Hey everyone, just wanted to announce that Justice for All has been included on Ryan Stephens’ ballot for the Top Ten Gen Y blogs of June. I’d like to thank those of you who have voted to get me on the list, and I very much appreciate it!

I encourage you all to check out the list here, because I’m honored to be in the company of so many other amazing, talented bloggers. And vote for your favorites (hint, I wouldn’t mind if you included me!) by sending an email to ryanstephensmarketing (at) gmail.com by tomorrow, May 29 - with a list of at least 5 blogs you are voting for. The deadline is soon so don’t forget to vote, and more importantly find some new blogs to subscribe to. And again I’m very thankful to be on this list - totally didn’t expect it at all It makes me glad to see that Gen Yers are thinking about human rights, international relations, and social change!

Watching TV news reports or reading newspapers fills us with depressing news from all over the world. No wonder people get obsessed with their favorite celebrity’s latest hairdo or sports teams’ scores. From protests against injustices, to wars, famines or natural disasters, we are all better off ignoring the plagues of the world and focusing on our daily lives. But, are we really?

I agree that media focus on the negative has no use apart from making us depressed, especially given that 95 percent of people, in western countries at least, live peacefully without any major obstacles. It is nevertheless important to be aware and spread awareness of injustices and human rights violations.

Why? Because we are all in this together.

I like this article on Alternet, which basically ponders on the reasons why we have a so called Earth Day, as the earth itself will be better off without us. The author continues saying that “ultimately, stopping climate change is not about preserving the earth (…) but about preserving ourselves”. The same goes with human rights. To care about human rights is not caring about some abstract ideal, it is caring about ourselves as the human specie and as individuals, because, in the end, helping others is helping ourselves and the world.

The global economic crisis taught us once more that we are all interconnected and interdependent on one another. A conflict somewhere may lead to the destabilization of a region, with a direct consequence on your wallet the next time you fill your gas tank, or buy some imported goods. It will most likely bring a surge of immigrants and an increased spending in humanitarian or military assistance. Beside these material consequences, violations of human rights touch directly at the core values of humanity. They compromise the dignity, integrity and equality of every human beings. Lastly, improving others’ lives ultimately improves the quality of our own life on earth, by ensuring wealthy, peaceful and tolerant nations. Thus, enabling further trade, cultural exchange, and eventually peace and wealth for everyone.

We all were born on earth, and we will all die. Our experience in between is our responsibility.

Awareness is not sufficient. Action is needed. Gandhi summarizes it well in his famous quote: “we need to be the change we wish to see in the world”. It is delusional to rely on governments, leaders, corporate or nonprofit entities to get the work done. These can only be a medium to improve the respect of human rights.

Through our everyday actions we need to thrive towards the respect of human rights and the values they represent.

With today’s technologies, it is becoming easier than ever to help a cause in no time. In two mouse clicks you can help spread awareness and protect human rights. You can join a cause or group on Facebook, retweet human rights alerts, and show support for advocacy efforts. It will only take two minutes of your time, but it will have a major impact. The recent cases of Roxana Saberi and Aung San Suu Kyi prove how international pressure can truly help reporters and human rights defenders.

I highlight below a few amazing organizations, which provide platforms for you to have an impact in the world today.

Human Rights First does wonderful work protecting human rights defenders and people at risk of human rights violations around the world. You can sign up to their human rights defenders alerts or participate in HRF actions against torture and baseless prosecutions.

Amnesty International is one of the first organizations that mobilized people for the respect of human rights around the world. Amnesty sets up campaigns to help protecting human rights defenders, to stop torture and prevent human rights abuses.

Physicians for Human Rights organizes online campaigns to mobilize people against health and human rights abuses.

Avaaz is global web advocacy organization, which organizes various online petitions on major issues, such as environment, human rights, corruption and conflicts. They do great work in ensuring people can have an impact on global decisions. You can sign up to participate in their campaigns. You will be able to have your voice heard in literally two clicks.

2Care is an online petition website that mobilizes people on environmental issues, global warming, wildlife protection, health policies and human rights.

Human Rights Watch is a leading organization advocating for human rights protection around the world. It has a great online action center where you can take action to protect human rights.

And don’t forget that the real power of change lies in your hands.

If you haven’t already, please pop on over to Matt Cheuvront’s blog, Life Without Pants. I recently wrote a guest post for his Inconvenience of Change series, describing my viewpoint on why social change is so important and why it’s so hard for people to understand that. Here’s an excerpt:

“Why is helping someone thousands of miles away so important? It’s because we are all truly, deeply interrelated. We can’t separate their poverty from our success. My success depends on the success of a farmer in India, or a small business owner in Mali. By making the world better as a whole, I’m improving my own life. By improving the economies of developing countries, we here in the U.S. are finding more emerging markets to export to. By helping Somalia establish a stable government and helping Somalian fishermen, we are preventing piracy attacks on U.S. ships. By educating children in poor areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, we are helping to reduce extremist Islamic ideology that recruits future terrorists. Helping others helps us. Good karma comes back to help you when you need it. This isn’t selfless altruism: it’s the virtue of selfishness.”

So please head on over there to read my full post, and while you’re at it check out the rest of the excellent posts in Matt’s series. I thank Matt for the great opportunity to participate, and it’s been really great to hear everyone’s unique viewpoint on change. Enjoy!

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about success. Where does it come from? How can we define it? And how do the most “successful” people get there? Recent posts written by Grace and Jamie got me thinking even more and inspired me to add my thoughts to the conversation.

The way I see it, there are two ways to perceive success. First, there’s what “society” considers successful. “Society” varies from person to person: society is basically made up of those whose opinions you respect and who you may be influenced or pressured by. This might be the abstract “society” as a whole, experts in a specific field, your colleagues, your family, your friends, or your loved ones. Depending on who you respect and want to impress in life, you might be subject to different pressures and different definitions of success. Each person you’re influenced by might consider success to be correlated with wealth, happiness, educational achievement, bettering the world, or fame. Your mother might want you to be a doctor, your friends may want you to do entrepreneurship, or your significant other might be wishing you’d take a stable job to pay the bills. In any scenario, each person you know has different expectations for you.

And then there is what you yourself consider successful. What’s your own opinion of success? How do you define your own success and what would make you happiest? What are the goals you have set out for yourself, completely separate from what others might think of you? What excites you, and what are you genuinely passionate about?

If you are constantly attempting to achieve success through the first definition - by attempting to conform to the idea of success that your own personal “society” has set out for you - you will never be happy. Because everyone you know - your friends, loved ones, colleagues, professors, and society as a whole - all have differing ideas of what success means. You can’t make them all happy at the same time. Do you really want to live life chasing other peoples’ visions of success?

So here’s my opinion: if you want to be truly successful, you can’t chase the idea of success in the eyes of others. You have to consider first and foremost your own passions and your own desires, dreams, and hopes. And, you can’t chase success, period. If you follow your true passions and forget the “success” you’re trying to achieve, you will actually achieve that success.

Many of the people we consider incredibly successful today didn’t get there with the goal of being rich and famous, or of pleasing their friends and family. They never chased success for the sake of success itself. They have taken unconventional paths, and taken risks simply to do what they love. And they are so good at doing what they love that they are being recognized for it, and rightfully. J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter because she loved writing, and believed in her visions and passions - not with the end goal of being famous. Bill Gates left Harvard to work on Microsoft, not just to get rich fast but because he was genuinely passionate about software and his ideas. Muhammad Yunus’ idea of microfinance has become world renowned as an innovative development strategy and he has won the Nobel Prize - but he never pursued it because of a desire to be successful, but only out of his belief in and passion for the potential of microfinance to alleviate poverty.

So - forget, for a second, what others might think of you. Forget about how society views success, or what your parents or your spouse wants you to achieve. And instead, remember what it is you are most passionate about, what you truly love to do and want to do for the rest of your life. And dedicate yourself to that. Success cannot be a goal, but is often an outcome for those who simply do what they love and do it well.