Mainstreaming Nonviolence Toolbox: Building a World Where Everyone Matters

 This blog by Ken Butigan highlights ideas, books, videos, websites, projects, campaigns, organizations and individuals offering new directions for mainstreaming the power of nonviolent change.  Click here for more about mainstreaming nonviolence.

March 21, 2010:

Veteran Human Rights Campaigner Launches New Web Portal: http://declarerights.org

When I teach courses on nonviolence, I always begin by assigning the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

Generally I find that most students are not aware of this document.  When they read it, they often have one of three reactions: they are amazed that this set of rights have been written down and passed by most of the countries of the world (“I had no idea!”); they are amazed that these rights had to be written down (“It should be obvious that we have all these rights!”); or they are amazed at how these rights have been trampled on over and over again (“It’s nice to have them on paper, but who is following them?”).  

This typically leads us into discussions about actions, campaigns, and social movements people around the world have waged to uphold these rights, which are the cornerstone of both flourishing civil societies and the dignity of all human beings everywhere. 

After the UDHR was passed on December 10, 1948 the human rights movement began to accelerate.  One of the key figures in this movement has been Jack Healey.  Jack has been a human rights campaigner for almost half a century.  He served as the executive director of Amnesty International USA for twelve years, and currently is the director of the Human Rights Action Center in Washington, DC.  Most of all, he is an extremely practical visionary who knows in his bones that each of us has the power to make a difference. 

For the past dozen years he has been actively and tenaciously in the forefront of the campaign to free Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate under house arrest in Burma.  He also has a campaign to get the UDHR stitched into every passport in the world.

Jack has recently developed a “human rights portal” called declarerights.org.  This is a clearinghouse for all things human rights. 

I invite you to check it – and, more importantly, to use it as one more important tool in the toolbox of mainstreaming active nonviolence for a more just and peaceful world.

Jack will be presenting a seminar at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California June 11-13, 2010.  For more information, click here.

Here are links about Jack Healey:

Jack Healey: Biography and work

Jack Healey: Video Interview on Burma

Jack Healey: Presentation at UCLA in December 2009

Animation created by Seth Brau Produced by Amy Poncher Music by Rumspringa courtesy Cantora Records.

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