International Human Rights Day

This Saturday past was International Human Rights Day around the world. Every year, people from all over the world gather and organize events to commemorate Human Rights in their respective countries. As it stands, the Declaration of Human Rights is the most translated document in history, having been translated into over 382 different languages and dialects.

Everyone has the right to basic human rights as outlined in the Declaration, and each country has the responsibility of ensuring its people they are given these rights. On Saturday, over 100 people marched for their human rights in Grenada. I'm sure a few of you remember last years Human Rights Day, which I helped introduced and implement the first human rights ribbon in Grenada. This year, we added the human rights march through town and the internationally known Clothesline Project (http://www.clotheslineproject.org/).

The day was overwhelmingly successful with the help of many in attendance and the assistance of community partners. This event concluded the 16 Days of Activism to Protest Violence Against Women (Nov. 25-Dec. 10) and was indeed a chance for us to go out with a bang before Christmas break. If you remember last year, it took some time for the human ribbon idea to take hold and be understood by those in attendance.

Last year's human ribbon

This year's human ribbon

Improvement indeed if I may say so myself. During the planning stages and initial days leading up to the event we weren't sure we had engaged the public enough, but the day of the march we showed up to a decent amount of people and a huge improvement from last year. Engaging stakeholders and planning EARLY (which is hard to do on island time) set the event up for success and we all should be proud of the work we accomplished. Hopefully next year the event will be ever larger! Until then, check out some more pictures....