Episode 12: Human Rights Watch Student Task Force, Part Two

Human Rights Watch Student Task Force is a youth leadership-training program that brings together high school students with educators and empowers them to advocate for human rights issues, especially the rights of children. Pam Bruns is the Founder and Executive Director Emeritus. Kristin Ghazarians is the Senior Manager. Ren Zhang and Clementine Causse are two students working with the Human Rights Watch (HRW) Student Task Force (STF.)

In Episode 12, Pam and Kristin discuss human rights and the intersection of local community issues, as well as deploying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as a framework for rights conversations. They discuss making personal connections to human rights, and the integration of human rights vocabulary into conversations at home and at school. Ren and Clementine share their thoughts on the importance of humanizing rights issues by sharing experiences related to human rights. They go on to discuss the link between compassion and advocacy; strategies to advance faculty understanding of HRE; and the importance of ongoing professional development and self-study about HRE. Pam and Kristin share strategies for advancing HRE in the US, while Clementine and Ren share their thoughts on advancing HRE at home through family conversations, and the importance of learning how to engage with people who disagree with one’s views. The group then shares their most influential role models in HRE, as well as the importance of perseverance in human rights work. Lastly, they each share a significant quote which sums up their views about human rights, and an important action they think would advance HRE in the US.  

Topics discussed:

• Human rights and the intersection of local community issues
• UDHR as a framework for rights conversations
• Personal connections to human rights 
• Integration of human rights vocabulary into conversations at home and school
• Importance of humanizing rights issues by sharing personal experience
• Link between compassion and advocacy
• Strategies to advance faculty understanding of HRE
• Importance of ongoing professional development about HRE
• Advancing HRE at home through family conversations
• Importance of learning how to engage individuals with differing views
• Influential role models in HRE and significant quotes summing up views on HRE
• Ideas about important actions which would advance HRE in USA 

Full topic listing available for PDF download HERE.

Introduction and Closing Music Credit: “Awakening-Spring” by Ketsa, from the Album Night Vision. Available at the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/night-vision/awakening-spring/

This music is used in accordance with this Creative Commons License: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Information about that license is available here https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Human Rights Education Now! is produced and distributed in accordance with Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International. Information about this license is available here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/