R2E: Human Rights Mobile Library
Providing a space and the materials for refugee students to learn about human rights and their right to education!
R2E is a chest full of learning tools, including e-readers loaded with books and documents, maps, utensils, and other resources and curriculum — focusing on human rights. Per requests from the refugee students, it will also include English learning material. Along with the chest, the mobile library will include tables, chairs, and mats to make a comfortable learning environment. The library is mobile (two donkeys can carry it all), so it can move to the different schools and classrooms in the camps.
Two R2E libraries will be created, one in Darfuri refugee Camp Djabal and another in Camp Goz Amer, in Chad, close to the Sudan border.
HRW Student Task Force will…
STF members will research appropriate resources and materials and will be in contact with the refugee students as they explore what the Right to Education means and what the reality is for other youth around the world, where education might actually be a matter of life and death.
Our Plan: Fall 2011…
- Determine and create educational materials for the library to be delivered to the camps by i-ACT.
- Communicate with the refugee students and teachers in the Chad camps via PAZOCALO. The mutually enriching relationships that develop allow for limitless impact on both continents.
Recent News:
Paperwork out of the way, we now look east
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A day in the capital does a job on you. Fighting the jetlag and tiredness from having spent 24hrs making the journey here, we then spent a whole day doing final touches on permits, getting a cell phone (actually, service for two cell numbers — always good to have a backup!), and exchanging money. A small stack of one-hundred dollar bills turned us in to millionaires in Chadian money!
We’re ready to head to the east! It’s going to be another whole-day type of a thing. Oh, it’s also going to be Thanksgiving Day. We won’t have any turkey out here. There won’t be mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, and all those great desserts. I’m actually starting my 1,000 calorie Chad diet, made up of tuna, nuts, and granola bars. I have a few little containers of peanut-butter, so I might go over just a bit on some days.
I’ll miss the food, but I’ll miss my family a lot more. Being away from my son and daughter is so hard, and each day I feel it a little more. After six straight i-ACT Expeditions together, this is now my second one without KTJ. I miss her. For the few of you that don’t know, she’s not only my coworker — she is also my wife.
It’s a privilege to be out here, though, and my teammates are also giving up so much to be here with me. We have a cool Expedition crew. Jeremiah is coming back to Chad, having been with me and KTJ on that trip when we got caught in the middle of a rebel takeover of the capital. It’s Jordan’s first trip, but she seems ready for any adventure. Meghan is with us for the first part of the trip. She’s from the Darfur Dream Team office, and it’ll be great to introduce her to all the kids and teachers in the camps, whom she knows from our social network, Pazocalo, peace public square.
OK, getting closer to the camps!
G’s Travel Notes #1
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It’s never simple, even on our eleventh trip. It took us about 24 hours to make it to N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, from when we departed Los Angeles. We travel heavy, bringing all kinds of communications equipment, educational material, and sports stuff.
After the ten hour flight to Europe, I was looking forward to jumping on the internet during our layover time at the Paris airport, but the network did not work. After another six hours in the air, we land in N’Djamena and the excitement of making it out of the airport and finding taxis. It’s always surprising that the old cars make it to their destination. They sure do shake, rattle, and slowly roll. Now at the hotel, and the wifi that is so nicely advertised on their website does not work, so I’m having to connect through our own equipment, which costs us for usage.
Tomorrow, we hit the road early. We’ll head out to the UNHCR offices and look at how our permits are doing. We need to get a stamp from the police station, a permit to travel out of the capital and to the east, and another permit to use cameras. Ideally, on Thursday morning we fly out to the east — hopefully making it all the way to Kou Kou, the village close to the first camp we’ll be visiting, Goz Amer.
There are usually quite a few “adventures” along the way. Navigating Chad offers all kinds of surprises, most of them not fun, at every corner.
It is now almost 1am here in Chad. We’ll see how the jetlag hits this time. For now, I need a shower.
Peace,
G
R2E Mobile Human Rights Library
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Hello! My name is Patricia Bitar and I am an intern for the Human Rights Watch Student Task Force (STF). Launched
in 1999, STF is fundamentally about students advocating for children’s rights. It is a youth leadership-training program that brings together high school students from all over Los Angeles and empowers them to advocate for human rights issues that concern the rights of children.
The STF teachers work in partnership with us as STF interns to mentor students in leadership skills and activism, enabling them to become effective voices for change and social justice within their communities.
We are currently working with 13 high schools all over L.A. to promote this year’s campaign: the Right to Education. As we educate our students about human rights, we are partnering with i-ACT Directors Gabriel Stauring and Katie J Scott and Darfuri refugees to create two Mobile Libraries for refugee students at two camps along the Chad’s boarder with Sudan. STF chapters will create educational materials and fundraise almost $3000 to create the Mobile Libraries which will consist of E-books, tables, mats, dictionaries, chairs, a donkey, and a librarian. The libraries will travel between schools in the camps on two donkeys.
Along with raising money, the STF members will research appropriate resources and materials and will be in contact with refugee students as they explore what the Right to Education means and what the reality is for other youth around the world where education is a matter of life and death.
As a student in International Relations at the University of California San Diego, I feel privileged to be working with HRW and I-Act, an outstanding team of hard-working, inspiring, and intelligent people! I am very excited to see what the New Year brings as we raise awareness and partnerships between L.A. School districts and Darfuri Refugees!
To learn more about this project or to donate, please visit us at www.hrwstf.org/mobile_library and iactivism.com/r2e.
Photos from the HRW Student Task Force September Leadership Conference: