Human Rights USA Moves Forward:
An Update
by Lyn Beth Neylon
Human Rights USA is a domestic human rights initiative implemented by Amnesty International USA’s Human Rights Educators’ Network, the Center for Human Rights Education, Partners in Human Rights Education (a joint project of the University of Minnesota Human Rights Center and Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights), and Street Law, Inc. (formerly National Institute for Citizen Education in the Law). The purpose of Human Rights USA is to reach social justice advocates, educators, students and the general public to achieve a new level of awareness about the relevance and meaning of human rights in the USA, and to foster action to guarantee these rights.
Human rights education has begun in Human Rights USA’s four metropolitan sites — Atlanta, St. Louis, San Antonio and Minneapolis/St. Paul. Community-based and school- based "anchoring organizations" are receiving human rights training, and learning how to analyze local human rights problems, plan activities and advocate for change using a human rights framework. These sites were chosen based on established criteria, to assure that the organizations had the capability to carry out trainings, to guarantee the participation of a mixture of types of community-based organizations and low-to- moderate-income people, and to make sure that a variety of issues were represented.
Human Right USA identified two "anchor" groups in each site, one to concentrate on local school-based human rights education, and one to work with community grassroots social justice organizations to incorporate a human rights framework into their work. These anchoring organizations are working together at each site, forming "Unity Coalitions," and breaking down the traditional barriers between schools and communities. Each site has its own history, affecting the economic, racial and general political environment, the number and effectiveness of social justice organizations, and the independence or lack of it in the schools, all of which will affect how our site organizations operate.
In the first six months of Human Rights USA, although it was an introductory phase of the Initiative, some human rights community events took place in the sites, such as: Poor People’s Day, in Atlanta (a human rights "teach-in" for approximately 200 participants); a community forum on collective human rights; monthly community human rights education classes; and human rights training session for the Atlanta Muslim community.
Activities at the sites, including teacher trainings, will increase dramatically in the coming months. Human Rights USA’s National Strategic Planning Meeting was held July 25–27, 1997 in Washington, DC. Representatives from 64 U. S.- based social justice, education and other organizations came together and shared their experiences and expertise, learned the human rights framework, and strategized about creative ways to use that framework in their work and to increase awareness of human rights in the United States. Since the meeting, participating organizations from all over the United States have been inspired to hold human rights educational activities, trainings, political actions and even their own mini-conferences based on the sessions and materials provided to them by Human Rights USA.
After only eight months, Human Rights USA is on its way to accomplishing its goal, which is to increase the awareness of Americans, and particularly of educators and activists in our four sites, about the relevance, scope, meaning and importance of human rights in the United States, and to promote community-based action in support of human rights domestically. As Human Rights USA moves from preparatory to program work, it seems eminently possible that it will be a catalyst for a more visible, vital and relevant human rights movement in the years to come.
| Human Rights USA and Street Law, Inc. moved in August, 1997: Human Rights USA phone: 202–293–0088 |
