Susie on the Human Rights Training Weekend

Susie (on left) at start of Human Rights Training Weekend

This weekend, we took a break from our activist projects and “study Sundays” and embarked on a new kind of adventure. Africa Unite, an NGO that works on bringing peace between different African nations and refugees, held a Human Rights Training weekend that we were invited to attend at Goedgedacht, an olive farm. At first, I was excited to be doing something completely new, but a little nervous that it would just be a conference filled with boring lectures. Either way, I knew I would learn a lot about human rights, a topic that I could definitely know more about.

When we arrived at the olive farm, we were introduced to the other half of the group attending the training weekend; most were from South Africa, and some have recently moved from various other African countries, such as Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo. After branching away from other UConn students and talking with new friends, I was immediately inspired by all of their stories. Some of the students were younger than me, and recently graduated high school to move onto bigger things. I roomed with Mabongi, an amazing woman who has definitely had a much more interesting life than me. She told me about how she got involved with a range of human rights issues, but also has had extremely thrilling smaller jobs. One of her highlights was working with prison inmates, teaching them different life skills for when they are eventually released back into society. I could have listened to her tell these stories for hours!

The training weekend itself was not filled with boring lectures as I thought it would be. Vincent, our History and Politics of South Africa class teacher ran different exercises to learn about human rights. My favorite of these exercises was when we were divided into five different African countries, and given a specific scenario and the role in which our country fit in (I was the Democratic Republic of Congo.) The scenario was that we had used up all of the earth’s resources and forced to move to planet “x”; after we arrived, the four other countries either asked permission to join, or just showed up. We then had to create five rules or laws for the DRC, and five basic rules for other countries moving onto planet “x.” Sounds simple right? Well, it was hard enough to come up with five rights for our own country, let alone how it would affect the refugees from other countries arriving later. After long debates, it was clearly evident that everyone needs their respected human rights, and if you take one right away, such as voting, then it affects all of the other rights one should receive. Although we are all pretty tired from a more hectic weekend, Human Right training weekend was extremely informative and worthwhile, and I loved meeting new people I hope to see again soon!

Susie (on right) works with her group on a project