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When what you are doing is the right thing, the things that you do will be
right. That is the kind of year we have had at the Center for Human Rights
Education in Atlanta. Since our inception in January 1996, we have successfully
organized, trained, collaborated, fundraised, developed, created and networked
in our organizational growth and Human Rights Education program implementation.
Check out some of our greatest highlights in 1996:
- Programs/Activities – Our programs and activities include a
range of training, workshops and presentations, media relations, publications,
networking and advocacy.
- Training – CHRE has conducted 13 Human Rights Education
trainings and/or teach-ins in Atlanta, and in other US communities such as Des
Moines IA, Camp Sister Spirit in Ovett MS, Esperanza in San Antonio TX, and in
international settings like the Habitat II Conference in Istanbul, Turkey. In
addition, we have trained 12 Atlantans as Human Rights Educators for CHRE's
Speakers' Bureau.
Some especially important training opportunities this year
came through CHRE's co-sponsoring of the first-ever Southern Human Rights
Organizing Conference in Oxford, Mississippi (Sept.), and the convening of a
Women's Human Rights Teach-In at Spelman College in Atlanta (May).
Other
trainings included the volunteers and staffs of organizations working on issues
such as economic justice, welfare rights, homelessness, gay/lesbian /bisexual
rights, reproductive rights, civil rights and global human rights.
- Workshops/Presentations – The staff and volunteers of CHRE
have conducted or facilitated 33 human rights education workshops or
presentations since January. These events have directly reached approximately
2,000 people in Atlanta and across the United States including 11 colleges and
universities, and 27 national and community-based organizations.
- Public Relations/Media – It has been an important goal of CHRE
to ensure that visibility of the organization be great in our inaugural year.
To a large degree we have been successful. In addition to doing at least 14
radio, 3 television, 4 magazine and 11 newspaper interviews/appearances, CHRE
has been featured on PBS's Rights and Wrongs series and co-sponsored the
Peoples' Media Center for the Olympic Games in Atlanta. CHRE's Executive
Director Loretta Ross was featured in Emerge Magazine (August), and had a guest
editorial in USA Today (September) on ratification of the Women's Human Rights
Treaty.
For organizational publications, we have produced a CHRE brochure,
training presentation, monthly newsletter, and recorded training videos for
production in 1997.
- Organizational Development – CHRE has successfully launched an
organization that immediately implemented programs as it simultaneously built an
institution to provide human rights education and services. Since January, CHRE
has developed an international advisory board, raised over $92,000.00 in
foundation grants and donations, funded two staff positions of executive
director and program director, and successfully collaborated with other groups
such as the GA Citizens' Coalition Against Hunger, SisterLove Women's AIDS
Project, Project South, Empty the Shelters, and various human rights working
groups across the country. —M
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