Extra-Academic Programs

AMNESTY DEMANDS DIGNITY

Women in Nicaragua

From October 19^th – November 19^th, the Amnesty International Group from RCN went to Førde, Dale, Flekke, Haugland and the cantina to collect signatures for the women in Nicaragua. In total we collected 460 signatures, which will be sent to the Government of Nicaragua along with thousands of signatures collected all over Norway. On our last action in Førde, we were honored to have our dear Jennyfer from Nicaragua coming along with us. We are very grateful!

If you want to learn more about the situation in Nicaragua, go to:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/

Amnesty group carried out the “Letter Writing Marathon” during the night 19 to 20 February 2010 from 9:30 pm to 8:00 am, producing 100 different appeal letters.
Thank you All who joined our action!

Mr. Mansour Rajih, Yemeni poet and former prisoner of conscience, visited the Red Cross Nordic United World College. He stayed on campus from Thursday, January 22nd, to Saturday, January 24th. On Thursday evening, Amnesty International Group organized an open presentation for the college community, where Mr. Rajih talked about his life and poetry and answered students’ questions.

Mr. Rajih also participated in Human Rights classes for the first years.

This term has been full of events for Amnesty International. We were still meeting every Monday at 16:00 at the beginning and then now on every Thursday at 20:00 focusing on current issues and presentations where human rights abuse is seen. We have been discussing about the situation in Kenya at this time where the ethnic groups motivated by political anger are committing massive homicide, the censorship and abuse in China mostly against human rights activist, the issues of abuse of women for instance the case of Ethiopian women going to the neighboring Arabic countries. The presentations are followed by debate about what can be done generally to improve the situation and then about what can Amnesty International do. Discussions are always interesting as they educate politically and are highly informative for all of us. As an amnesty group, we then take action by writing letters ourselves to governments and politicians to show solidarity and hopefully make a change and by sitting in public place to raise awareness and incite people to write.

Raising awareness:

Sitting in the kantina:

Often we do it locally at the college amongst students and staff where more than 60 people sign petitions or write their own letters. Examples of those are:

- The Ethiopian case ( January),

- Chinese human right activist being under arrested in his house (March)

– The case of Tibet in China (6^th of May)

Documentary: The Killers’ Paradise

According to our decision from last term to raise money for stamps and to raise awareness in a different and larger target, in the occasion of the international women’s day, we went to Dale, in a shop, the Saturday 8^th of March from 10:00 to 16:00.

Women’s day in Dale:

We were presenting local case concerning the rape case in Norway and other international issues about Brasil, Guatemala and Peru… Local people from Dale were very friendly and patient to listen and investigate the cases (we didn’t speak Norwegian, which made the communication challenging!) and then sign and pay the postage of the letters we have been preparing. This day has been fruitful: we got about 50 letters posted and extra-money to post about 60 others letters.

In the process of raising awareness, the Amnesty International group showed to the broad public in the college a movie entitled : “The Killers’Paradise”, a documentary reporting the flagrant and unpunished case of killing women in Guatemala. It was preceded by a short presentation of the Amnesty EAC at the college.

Lopper market:

Our last action of the year outside meetings was the sale of souvenirs and clothes from students to provide money for stamps. It was very effective too with a lot of interest from students and some people from Haugland. We used the opportunity of having people gathered to inform about Amnesty’s stands and actions.

Writing letter Marathon: 12½ hours

One other very interesting and fruitful activity that we had in Amnesty International was the “Writing letter marathon of 12½ hours”. We started on a Sunday evening, the 16^th of March from 19:00 until the 17^th of March at 7.30 in the morning, in the Swedish classroom. About 15 people were there, staying or passing by to bring active participation and write. We posted in the morning about 60 home made letters of cases that we discussing and discovering the night in Amnesty web-site. The cases were from all over the world but the most urgent ones were fro China, Iran and Iraq. It has been an occasion for people to show their interest in the world and a lot of interesting conversations were going on. Once again, it was very informative and people were developing writing skills and some geographical and political knowledge.

Our last action of the year outside meetings was the sale of souvenirs and clothes from students to provide money for stamps. It was very effective too with a lot of interest from students and some people from Haugland. We used the opportunity of having people gathered to inform about Amnesty’s stand and actions.

Some more actions are planned for the next term and we really look forward to new faces and new ideas. Thanks very much everyone for the efforts done this term!