Human rights violations in far away places -- Americans will turn away if they feel a “certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill.” * If instead they work to end the injustice or bring about a fair rule of law by contacting their elected representatives and senators, the intervention can exact a positive outcome all the way across the world.

Elected representatives are more motivated to take action on behalf of any good cause, e.g. the environment, consumer safety, gun control, election reform, or, as in our work, international human rights, when the campaign is well articulated and constituents form broad coalitions with growing numbers. A feedback loop forms between the constituent group and the staffer as questions asked and concerns raised by the constituents are answered by the staffer when they call the state department and foreign embassies.

The Rebuilding Alliance seeks to create a set of web-based tools to show constituents they can make a difference when it comes to human rights violations in distant land – and how. The Rebuilding Alliance seeks to create the “Here Are Those Who Care,” Project by combining a set of web-based database, mapping, and teleconference tools and testing these tools with constituent groups focused on our current project, Saving the Kindergarten and Village of Al Aqabah. We want to show constituents see they are not alone, and help them find like minded people who are close-by in their congressional district. We want to help elected representatives learn about issues first-hand in a secure and trustworthy manner through face-to-face meetings and technology common to the business world so that these representatives can better respond to constituent requests and take action.

* Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street, by Herman Melville, paragraph 93

One man tacked his complaints to the door of a Catholic church. Do people know your story?

Your stories will change our destiny.

BACKGROUND:

1. Millions of people are blogging their stories.
2. Policy activists are always looking for "personal stories" to support their goals.
3. You are more powerful than you think.

IMPACT:

1. One single story can make tanks roll to a stop.
2. The new march in Selma, Alabama, is flickering across our keyboards.
   

Photo by eskimoblood.