**Please forgive me for interrupting the Be the Change series — back to your regularly scheduled programming soon! I’m taking an absolutely amazing class right now about Sudan, human rights, and US foreign policy. It has been so illuminating and challenging – it’s actually taught by the former Special Envoy, which is pretty amazing (sometimes…
I’m always getting to news late on this blog, because I constantly have things I want to say. So although this post refers to a news story from last week, I still feel a need to write about it – because it has haunted me ever since I read it. Last week the New Yorker…
Here’s a horrifying article from The Guardian, discussing the spread of Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army into Congo. Already 1,200 have been killed and more than 2,000 (about one-third children) have been kidnapped in the DRC in the past year. In one area of Congo, about 360,000 people have been forced to flee their homes. While…
Today I’d like to highlight a wonderful organization, HEAL Africa, which provides holistic care to people in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As some of you may know, the DRC has been called the “worst humanitarian disaster since WWII” since about 5 million people have died since 1998. Despite the unstability of the country and…
A couple of days back, I was on a plane from London to the U.S. and I had the opportunity to sit back, relax, and watch movies. I ended up watching the Kiera Knightley flick, The Duchess – and I was definitely not expecting what I saw. If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s a…
International human rights law comes with a lot of jargon attached to it. There’s the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social, and Cultural rights. And then there are countless more protocols, conventions, and councils. Although these conventions and documents are all a testament to the…
This Friday I wanted to highlight an amazing project which recently won the 2009 Echoing Green Fellowship. Accountability Counsel is an organization aiming to partner with communities harmed by international finance and development projects in order to hold international institutions and corporations accountable, and develop new accountability systems where none exist. Communities around the world…
Oftentimes, it seems to me that criminal justice reform falls to the wayside in light of many more seemingly pressing issues, even within the broader human rights community. People tend to look down on criminal justice reform, wondering why resources need to be spent on assisting those who are accused of crimes, when they would…
Recently I featured The Enough Project and the work they are doing to raise awareness of the war in Congo. Enough says that sexual violence in Eastern Congo is often intensified by wars over access to “conflict minerals,” – metals which end up being used in our cell phones and other electronic devices. The good…
Recently, I started following Susanne on Twitter. She often tweets interesting and relevant news related to human rights and international issues, and by following her I ensure I’m always up to date about the latest human rights news. Please read on for fascinating insights on human rights, and what you can do to get involved…