Annual symposium focuses on global human rights
Next week, the third annual Georgia College Global Citizenship International Symposium will be held to discuss human rights causes. The event, titled “What Can I Do About Human Rights,” will take place Monday through Wednesday in the Arts & Sciences Auditorium and will feature several prominent speakers from various world organizations that deal with human rights issues.
“We started this conference three years ago for people who had a profound interest in different political issues throughout the world. This year we chose human rights as our main issue,” said Dr. Gregg Kaufman, coordinator of Civic Engagement Projects and the American Democracy Project on campus. “We have joined with a wide variety of people from basically all of the different academic departments on campus and we’ve invited several people from outside of campus.”
The first day of the conference will focus mainly on the historical foundations for human rights and discuss issues that have led to the world’s status quo. A play entitled “Dr. Korczak and the Children” will also be performed.
On the second day of the conference, current-day human rights issues will be discussed via panels and breakout discussion groups. Sister Helen Prejean, a former prison minister, will be the keynote speaker. Prejean was pen pals with a convicted killer sentenced to die via electric chair in Louisiana. Prejean later authored a New York Times bestselling book called “Dead Man Walking,” which later became a hit movie in 1996.
The third and final day of the conference will focus on what action can be taken to address these issues. The project “Invisible Children,” which deals with children in Uganda being used as child soldiers, will be featured. Tabitha Baker, one of the main focuses of the project will be a speaker.
Kaufman said the symposium is an attempt to get people to come together and talk about issues and possible solutions.
“When students experience this symposium, the goal is for all of them to get a concrete idea of what kind of action they can take to help out,” he said. “One of the really good outcomes in events like this is we get a lot of collaboration between students and faculty members and so on.”
Rachel Stephens, the president of the GCSU chapter of the American Democracy Project said that the symposium offers a good variety of events for everyone.
“Every day is different and cool. Obviously there will be sometimes where a student can’t attend because they have class. Well this symposium gives us different things to do, so we can choose what day to attend. Whether you’re into theater or discussion groups, it’s all there,” Stephens said.
“Before the symposium, we’ve had a film series going on where we show films like ‘Dead Man Walking.’ This event is going to be amazing because it allows for a lot of open debate and discussion about issues,” Stephens said. “You get one person with one opinion about something, and another with another opinion, and it leaves us with a sense of how to define and solve problems.”
Dr. Dwight Call, vice president of International Education for GCSU, said that there will be more of these symposiums in the future.
“They are a way for all of us to focus on academic learning on some real world issues,” Call said. “Next year, we’re going to focus on world poverty. It’s going to be very useful having people from so many organizations coming and giving their perspective on these issues.”
“It gives us an opportunity in an interdisciplinary way to come together on an issue and raise awareness,” Kaufman added.
Posted by Scotty Thompson
on Feb 5 2010. Filed under News.
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