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Reflecting on working with and on Human Rights

By utnvmab, on 30 May 2019

A blog by: Alex, Shadon, Yasmin, Rimshaw, Claire and Jasmin

Working on a video for Amnesty International.

30/05/2019

In the morning we had an interesting lecture and discussion on video editing, filming and scripting. These have help guide us in the right direction from ‘the rule of thirds’, stabilising the camera and clear lighting, all of which seem straightforward but we made almost all these mistake on our first take.

In the afternoon we headed towards Amnesty International headquarters where we had a Q&A with Global Campaign, they discussed the campaigns they have worked with from ‘Stop Torture’ to ‘My Body My Rights’. Their discussions were inspiring to us all, most of which are looking for careers in NGOs and campaign running in the future. Explaining the individual actions we could partake in as students and later in our careers, they took the time to talk to us, and we were very grateful. After these discussions we continued brainstorming on our video idea. We have been given a prompt to create a visual summary of the International Youth Strategy 2016-2017 report. We have begun filming, editing and scripting our video ideas. We are super excited for the end result and hope to make the statistics come to life!

Thank you Amnesty International and we are looking forwards to keep working with you this week!

 

Here are some shots from behind the scenes…

 

Citizenship as the intersenction between understanding global issues and acting on them

By utnvmab, on 30 May 2019

Blog by: Papara, Theodora; dora.papara.17@ucl.ac.uk

Today’s discussion made me think of active citizenship as the intersenction between understanding global issues and acting on themcitizenship as the intersenction between understanding global issues and acting on themcitizenship as the intersenction between understanding global issues and acting on themcitizenship as the intersenction between understanding global issues and acting on them to improve people’s lives across the world. Thus I came out with a visualization of this idea

(See visual)

UCL Global Citizenship Programme: Meeting Resolution: Possible

By utnvmab, on 10 June 2018

Author: Zoriana Semehen
Resolution: Possible UCL Team: Aureliane Frohlich, Bahar Emirzade, Juliana Jia Xin Yin, Lena Kaisinger, Dan Liu, Maximilian Theye, Xin Xu, Zoriana Semehen, Xochitt Barranco

Last week, nine students participating in Global Citizenship Programme met Marijn van de Geer from Resolution: Possible. Resolution: Possible is a social enterprise that encourages people to reconsider their lifestyles by helping understand how one’s everyday actions impact the environment. Launching a campaign with ResPoss is the main task of the placement component of the Programme.

Imagine central African region suffering from attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). You are an ambitious young activist from the Western world willing to make a change in a region where you currently live. You initiate a campaign to attract attention of the international community to the conflict in this region. But suddenly you face the criticism of the local people blaming you for the lack of understanding of the broader picture and contextual factors. Now, you realize that you were wrong, and campaigning might not be so easy and straightforward as you thought before. In 2012, Marijn and her team were those ambitious activists. Did they give up? No, they learned from their experience to move forward. “We saw the value in providing the opportunity to think critically about the mainstream information we are exposed to.”, Marijn says. Few years later, they started a campaign named “Simple Things”.

We appreciate Marijn’s sincerity about the failures and unexpected consequences of some initial campaigns and how it influenced her as a campaigner. The story above not only describes the story of one small campaigning organisation; it shows how being transparent and willing to learn from your experience can make civil society stronger together and clearer about its goals and capacities.

Together with Marijn, we discussed how the use of language affects the way people react to the problem. For instance, the word ‘vermin’ used to describe wild animals (such as foxes) makes us treat them as hazard and removes any compassion. The issue of framing is a part of the Resolution: Possible’s recent “#ThinkBetter campaign” that encourages people to be open minded, follow positive thinking principles and care for others. We shared the examples from our countries when using words was aimed to create a particular public perception. Ten people from nine countries speaking a variety of languages: definitely, we had a lot of examples to share.

The day was over. We learned what campaigning means in practice and how to avoid the shortcomings of our actions. And yes, nine more students now #thinkbetter: the sky is the limit to those who are bold, passionate and… brave enough to start.

On Activism

By utnvmab, on 10 June 2018

Author: Diogo Vaz
Graduate Student in Human Rights

Activism for many people can be perceived as a somewhat weird word to embrace or an all too encompassing definition to handle. According to the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, activism is “a doctrine or practice that emphasises direct vigorous action especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue” .
Having been an activist since I was 15 years old, I have had the opportunity to acquire a huge amount of skills from the different causes I have made my contribution to, such as environmental, political, international development, communitarian and educational causes. Activism gave me the opportunity to engage with different cultures, mostly through European exchange programmes in countries such as Turkey, Spain, Latvia and Slovakia. But most importantly activism has had a decisive role in shaping my identity and providing a sense of belonging in contemporary society.
The skills set acquired through volunteering or participating in a campaign has proven to be a key element that employers look for when choosing new candidates for their organisations. Therefore universities are looking to expand their curriculum offer in order to include workshops or courses that directly answer to these needs, the Global Citizenship programme being a prime example of it. It is estimated that 82% of employers prefer people with volunteer experience and that 92% of them believe that volunteering provides job seekers with leadership skills .
Moreover, London is a hub for a wide number organisations that work in an array of different issues, offering loads of opportunities to university graduates or students to engage with a cause they feel most compelled to work with. Students may very well see their set skills expanded once they finish their university cycle and start making their way into the job market.
Nonetheless activism is not only about positioning yourself more in line with market demands. It is also, and probably more relevant, about triggering critical thought, discussing important issues in depth and maybe transform your community and the ones around you. Is about taking different views into account and come to collective understandings of the way people want their community to thrive. Without the perseverance of activists we would probably still live in world were women could not vote, same-sex marriage would not be a reality, ethnicity differences would still be legislated and were free speech would still be suppressed. We may take these things for granted nowadays, but these were the product of people who gave their full commitment and in many cases their lives in order to achieve some of these goals. It is therefore important to live up to the standards of our predecessors and carve the world of tomorrow.
Activism is a never-ending process of learning regardless of age. It is a constant metaphor for our own participation within society and how we want to shape the democratic fabric of the communities we live in.

  • Merriam Webster (2018). Activism. Available from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/activism
  • Fortune (2016). Here’s Why You Should Put Volunteer Work on Your Resume. Available from http://fortune.com/2016/06/28/volunteer-work-resume/

Summer Challenge: #swap3

By utnvmab, on 7 June 2018

Active Citizenship strand of UCL Global Citizenship, matches students with the available campaigning organisations so that students can be part of campaigns for two weeks, for a more hands-on experience in activism.
Author: Bahar Emirzade

Campaigning with Resolution Possible has been an incredible experience. One thing I never thought of until meeting ResPoss team was that, how does a campaigner know who to campaign for. Is there any way of telling who is telling the truth or is in need, just by having the knowledge from the news, considering news could be biased? Discussing this with ResPoss was very inspiring since they openly and honestly talk about these issues and their similar past experiences. Their actions to ensure defence for the correct side of the story are: doing their own research and talking to local people regarding the issues before they start a project.
What else I quite enjoyed about ResPoss is that their campaigns focus more on “why” rather than “what” in the sense that, they always explain their reasonings for why they are making a campaign and why you should support it, instead of relying on a sort of “porn” of emotional support, with a crying child in the front page.

 

In addition to that, I believe, finding more connections and roots to problems, and showing them to the community is way more valuable than just focusing on individual problems and ignoring the roots of it. For their environmental projects, they acknowledge that the roots are political and economic rather than these being standalone problems.
Our campaign: #PackSmart, was an idea that we came up with since many people will be going on holiday in the summer, and just the journey to a different country/continent, or even a different city, is not quite the best thing you can do for the Earth. To make up for even just a tiny bit of the carbon footprint left behind by travelling, tourists could pack more green products. Therefore, we decided to make this a challenge for the summer. #swap3 is a challenge where you can swap three products from your suitcase and choose more eco-friendly ones. One hope we have of people doing this challenge just for their holiday, is that they realise it doesn’t require that much effort to be environmentally friendly and continue using these products and be in general more aware of their choices.
We have some suggestions for anyone taking up the challenge, which can be found on our Simple Things page: And watch our YouTube video here:
Travel green this summer, save the planet and enjoy your summer!

 

 

Designing a campaigning flyer

By utnvmab, on 7 June 2018

Team members and authors 

Catherine Munn, Wonder Foundation; Yi Sun, Plan UK; Zhen Ge, Economy; Gexi Zhang, Economy; Nana Kutin Economy

We always work in a group. So today, our group discussed a newsletter for a campaign against nuclear weapon usage (about its pros and cons) and then we tried to improve the newsletter by drafting a new one.

We tried to section the information about the organisation and actions that people can take. We used image and capitalised words and numbers to draw attention and hopefully get people to sign the petition or even donate or participate in the march.

We learnt that to get maximum attention and engagement of the receiver, we need to first be clear about what we do (aims) in the newsletter, how we spend donations and also clear steps of actions the receiver can take.
To make the message to have more impact we can emphasis numbers, phrasing in an engaging way( using ‘you’), sectioning information, etc.

Check out our draft leaflet!

 

 

Pack Smart Campaign for Resolution Possible

By utnvmab, on 7 June 2018

 

Team members and authors 
Dan, Xin, and Zoriana

Since summer holiday is coming soon, most of us will be excited to pack for travelling, our Resolution Possible group decided to focus on sharing environmental impact of tourism with the people who are travelling. Actually, what you pack determines how you influence the environment.

For example, did you know that your sun screen does not only protect your skin and make it glow? It leads to coral reefs bleaching, deformation and death of sea animals. Each year, more than 6,000 tons of sunscreens enter waters putting at risk over 10% of corals on our planet. Can you imagine that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s ocean? Did you know that each year, over 200,000 animals suffer and die because of cosmetics testing?

 

Our idea is to motivate people to #dosimplethings – swap at least three ordinary items for three eco-friendly, ethical and sustainable products. The good news is being a better tourist has never been so easy. So, if you go on holiday this summer, do not forget your cruelty-free toothpaste, biodegradable toothbrush, natural soap bar, reef-safe sun screen, or reusable water bottle

Let’s start! #dosimplethings #packsmart #swap3, travel green and save the planet.

The Fatima Project – Working with Wonder Foundation

By utnvmab, on 6 June 2018

Team members and authors: 
Chris, Clemy, Catherine, Malva and Sidi


Day 6 of the active citizenship strand of the global citizenship challenge. We are working with the Wonder Foundation, a London-based charity which is currently developing “The Fatima Project”. This project aims to offer a safe and welcoming space for women migrants from all other the world to learn English. The lessons take place at the Baytree centre in Brixton. We got the opportunity to visit the centre and interview the students and teachers. We were amazed by how happy the students were with their classes; they all felt part of a family and really appreciated all the personal and professional support they received. The teachers equally loved their jobs and stressed the importance of making these women feel comfortable. It was also encouraging to see that former students had come back to the centre to volunteer as mentors and teachers. We are very impressed by the project!

 

 

Climate Change is What We Care About – Working with Think Global

By utnvmab, on 6 June 2018

 

 

Team members and authors: Dominika Leitane, Alyson Ong, Amy Partridge and Maria Picasso Bouroncle  

During our Active Citizenship program, we – a team of 4 UCL students – spent a fortnight designing a campaign through our placement at Think Global. Our task was to identify a specific human rights issue that we feel passionate about, and design our campaign around that issue in accordance with the values and goals of Think Global – to educate the general public on global issues, and give people the knowledge required to act on those issues.
As a result of our first brainstorming session, it was clear that we all cared very deeply about climate change and all the issues associated with it, with the refugee crisis also being prominent in the discussion. It was then that our Think Global supervisor, Faaria, pointed out that we can combine the two and talk about Climate Refugees – the phenomenon of people fleeing from their home countries due to abnormal climate conditions that are a direct consequence of the climate change brought about by global warming.

 


Upon subsequent research, all four of us were shocked to learn the extent to which this affects people across the globe. Indeed, climate change is usually framed within the context of the future – and when talking about the current situation, nature and animals are usually brought up. We realized that, just like us, most people are probably not even aware that climate change is having an impact on people, and not in 50 years, but today. This is how we came up with the idea of a campaign that is aimed at changing the public’s perspective on climate change – the message that we wanted to convey is that everyone should care about climate change, even if they don’t care about animals or the future – because it’s affecting more and more people every day – here and now.
The next step was to think about ways that people can help change the situation for the better. It was important to consider not only how global warming can be combated, but also what can be done to help the refugees. At this point in our research we found out that climate refugees are not granted the same rights as other types of refugee – and thought that this could be because the government does not feel enough pressure from the general public to change this, whilst the general public is, of course, not aware of the issue. We therefore put a special emphasis on the importance of raising awareness and voicing this concern.
Additionally, it became clear that this issue links very tightly to many of the Sustainable Development Goals set by the UN, such as Reduced Inequalities, Responsible Consumption and Production, Life on Land etc., – it was a curious revelation that many of the current issues in sustainable development and human rights are interlinked.
Designing our campaign (which included coming up with social media output, producing and creating a video clip and blog posts), we learned how to overcome many problems that are typical when engaging in activism: for example, we realized how hard it is to create an impactful acronym and hashtags, how to word the issue that we are portraying in the most effective and informative way, and how to work together as a group, respecting, valuing and building on each other’s ideas. We also had to make some hard decisions, particularly with regards to the film script, since we came up with so many ideas, but unfortunately we could only pick one – we tried to combine the ideas that were voiced during our brainstorming sessions whilst bearing in mind the necessity to be concise, and ended up creating a script that took the best from all our ideas but was also not overloaded with content. Overall, this experience has been an invaluable, and will definitely help us in our future endeavors.

Reflection on our Sustrans Placement

By utnvmab, on 6 June 2018

Sustrans UCL Team: Evelyn Mantoiu, Hanisah Abu Talib, Lauren Thompson, Siyu Zhang

 

 

 

Through the first two weeks of June, we have taken part in the UCL Global Citizenship Pathway. Being interested in campaign and how to generate social change, we have chosen to enrol in Active Citizenship Pathway. This pathway has two key components, the first one is a series lectures and workshops aimed at developing campaigning skills, while the second component is a placement with a partner organisation in which we apply the skills we learn in a working environment.

 

 

 

Sustrans is a charity focusing on promoting sustainable transport, with an emphasis on making it easier for people to walk and cycle in busy cities. Through their work they help improve the design of streets in such a way that they are more accessible to cyclists and pedestrians. Sustrans work collaboratively with communities and local authorities, as well as with Transport for London in redesigning streets in such a way that they are better suited for cycling and walking. The organisation has had a number of successful projects, among which the most famous is the National Cycle Network, which is the cross-country network of safe, traffic-free paths and quiet on-road cycling and walking routes, with a length of 14,000 miles, linking up villages, towns and cities.

 

 

In London, Sustrans has been working a project to ease traffic on Estreham Road in Stratford, which has been the focus of our placement task. The project on Estreham Road consisted in designing a quiet road measure, that changed the traffic from a two-way system to a one way system, with a two way system for cyclists. Our groups aim was to see how the new system designed by the Sustrans team in consultation with the local community has improved the lives of community members. This measure was vitally in a trial period, after which the community decided to keep as a permanent fixture. In order to showcase the results of this project, our team was tasked with creating a video that showcased how the new measure improved road quality.

In our first day of the placement, we met with our project manager, Roxanne and received the task of making a video and established our aims and vision for the project. Following this, our team visited the site on Estreham Road and approached members of the local community for a series of video and audio interviews, looking for their opinion on how the new measure improved living in the area. Our first day was both challenging and exciting, as we were in the process of familiarising ourselves with Sustrans project, while looking for people’s opinions on the quite road measure.

Over the next two days we gathered as much footage as possible and worked on our story board to decide on the message we want to convene and the narrative of our video. This process truly highlighted the benefits of working within an interdisciplinary team as our skills truly helped us in making the video.

Having to use footage of people, really made us think about issues of privacy and anonymization, for which Lauren’s background in law was really useful in helping is design strategies to mitigate this problem. Hanisah and Siyu were crucial in making the video come together as their technical and digital skills, really shone through in this project, especially in the way in which they approached the filming and editing of the video.

Meanwhile, Evelyn’s organisational helped make sure the team was coordinated and that everyone had key tasks to work on. Bringing these skills together made for an enjoyable experience, in which every member demonstrated commitment to teamwork.

Overall, our experience with Sustrans was really positive and contributed to our skills development. We learned how to capitalise on our different skills and how to build a professional relationship with an organisation. Walking through Estreham Road and the neighbouring area, was an eye-opening experience for us to see how busy roads in London transform into quieter safer places for pedestrians and cyclists.