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
This is a simple mashup using Network for Good’s donation API, with a particular focus on enhancing the donor experience with a virtualization of recent donations.
The NFG API mashed-up with a Google map would show all donations made to specific causes (by location) for a given time period over a US or World map.
This could be used on the homepage of Network for Good - to inspire others based on the action currently taking place.
The Elders, founded by Nelson Mandela, have called for the world to reclaim The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in it's 60th Year.
"We are human only though the humanity of other human beings" - Nelson Mandela
Through the Every Human Has Rights campaign, The Elders have joined with partners around the world to encourage people to embrace the values and goals of the Universal Declaration; to protect the rights of our fellow global villages; and encourage others to do the same in our communities, workplaces and schools.
We're calling for the world to rise up, and declare our committment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Every one of us has a story, that when shared, is what gives the Universal Declaration of Human Rights it's meaning. Through the Every Human Has Rights mash-up, we're going to bring the Universal Declaration to life. We've started by partnering with WITNESS and Google to collect and map people's stories from around the world, showing them through a powerful human rights lens.
In the end, we hope to contribute to the foundation of a powerful people network seeking accountability, and demanding human rights from all of our leaders.
We highlight the plight of the Akha people, their unique culture, land rights, child rights, and encourage people to get involved in helping protect these rights so that the Akha have a livable future.
Thousands of communities will be able to access data and map resources in their neighborhoods quickly, easily and at no cost to them. Advocates and service providers will be able to use a high-quality, well-designed, reliable platform for uploading data of their choosing and mapping that data against a wide range of demographic data, area resources, and other variables. This project will also allow nonprofit and community advocates across the U.S. to share and learn from each other how they can better use the power of mapping to advocate for and inform change. Not least, communities will be spared countless hours of effort and scarce dollars trying to build such tools from scratch, enabling them to focus more on the important work of finding the right data locally and interacting with people and organizations in their communities. The goal of our project is to make the public functionality of HealthyCity.org, the mapping tool we developed to serve Los Angeles, available throughout the U.S., free of charge, to nonprofit and community organizations. We believe this can be done in a fairly cost-effective and sustainable way, and we are looking for good thinking on how best to do it.
Examples of how Healthy City has worked in Los Angeles include:
- Mapping of overcrowded, multi-track calendar schools, to support a proposal of $25 billion in school construction bonds approved by California voters
- Analysis of areas of highest need for preschool facilities in Los Angeles, leading to over $100 million commitment of funds to develop preschool space
- Mapping of violent crimes and analysis of prevalence of gang crime, to identify priority areas for the City of Los Angeles
- Mapping the mismatch between concentrations of homeless people and availability of shelter space
- Grants analysis for foundations, including determining the location of grantees, the dimensions of their service areas (with information gathered by survey), and the magnitude of grant dollars relative to target population in grantees’ service areas
The Genocide Intervention Network seeks to create a new website, modeled on our successful Darfur congressional scorecard, DarfurScores.org, tentatively named GenocideScores.org. This grows directly out of our mission, to empower individuals and communities with the tools to prevent and stop genocide.
Our current site tracks each legislator's record on bills relating to Darfur. Hillary Clinton's scorecard, for instance, tracks the senator's record of co-sponsoring and voting for most important bills on Darfur. Sam Brownback similarly scores high for his outspoken record on the issue.
The process of a bill moving through Congress, however, is somewhat obscure. Action alerts are posted when a bill is coming up for a vote, and e-mails are sent to members in important states and districts. Yet most visitors won't know at a glance where a particular bill is, or which states or districts are most important to passing the bill.
Moreover, two additional campaigns have achieved significant momentum: the Sudan Divestment Task Force and the Teach Against Genocide campaign. These measure success on the state level — "Which states have divested?" or "Which state legislatures have approved genocide education?" While visitors to these sites can view information for their particular state, the particular status and action needed in a given state is not always immediately apparent.
Don't other sites track legislation? Why create a new cause-specific site? It's true that other websites track bills as the move through Congress. The difference with GenocideScores.org would be two-fold: First, it would incorporate state-based campaigns as noted above. Second, and perhaps most importantly, it would be curated by our advocacy staff to ensure anti-genocide activists are provided with the most effective information and tools. General legislation-tracking sites will never — and are not designed to — support advocacy on a particular cause, but our staff will ensure that the alerts people get on a particular bill or campaign tell them exactly how they can have the most impact.
In the 1980s and 1990s, over 69,000 people were killed in a brutal conflict between the Peru government and Maoist rebels. Of those killed, there are still many unresolved disappearances – and the figures have been put at 8,558 by the Peruvian Truth Commission. The Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) puts this figure as closer to 14,000 and to date has been able to collect information on 13,721 people who are still missing.
EPAF is seeking a way to develop an interactive map that would mesh the GIS capabilities of GoogleMaps with data on missing persons from their databases and spreadsheets with a feedback form where external audience would supply information to EPAF for verification and later inclusion on the map.
This map/data tool as described above would used as:-
1. GIS Investigative Tool: This would help in establishing any spatial relationships and trends in the people who went missing. Currently, EPAF has information on where people went missing from, place(s) where they are thought to have been taken to and where they were last seen. The use of maps and GIS as an investigative tool has been well established, and we have no doubt that this would be just as useful in this case.
2. National Record of the missing: Currently, there is no national record of those that went missing. While various records with data about the missing can be found – usually this is combined with other information (e.g Peru's Unified Registry of Victims has data on all victim typologies e.g. sexual assaults, torture). This this would be the beginnings of a central database of information for this purpose.
3. Outreach/ Educational Tool: This would also be used on behalf of and for families whose family members still remain unaccounted for. Ultimately, this would evolve to a focal point with information related to the disappeared (e.g. links to support facilities on the ground, news stories related to disappearances etc).
4. Preventative Tool: It is hoped that the success of this tool encourages its use in countries with similar disappearances (e.g. the Philippines). This tool could be used to track enforced disappearances, analyze trends as they occur, solicit information from the public, and rally a public behind an unfolding situation.
Imagine getting your news from people from around the world, instead of the mainstream media. Imagine getting different perspectives on global issues. Imagine being able to share your own viewpoints and get involved with issues you care about. Imagine OneWorld Connect, where people are better informed about global issues, can easily share their perspectives on what's happening in the world and connect with other people and organizations trying to make a difference. They will be able to create a customizable My OneWorld page to easily and quickly access and share information relevant to the countries and issues they care about the most.
YAC is a global, youth-led organisation harnessing the power of ICTs to inspire and empower young people worldwide to become active changemakers in their own communities.
Since 2005, YAC has been offering young people in over 120 countries worldwide free online courses on a vast array of subjects – so as to equip them with the knowledge, tools and skills they need to design and implement youth-driven community development projects.
As of now, YAC has empowered over 1,000 young people, mainly in developing countries and economies in transition.
Thanks to our online courses, young people have been able to reach out to their communities and empower them, have successfully lobbied for local policies, have created new organisations and socially-minded businesses and above all, have gained self-confidence and a renewed hope and understanding that everyone can ‘be the change they want to see in the world’.
To be able to help young people worldwide even more, YAC is currently planning for three new and exciting projects that should: 1. help young people speak up for themselves and their communities at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, 2. organise initiatives and programs thanks to a brand-new, fully interactive website with innovative features and 3. help young people from conflict areas share their perspectives and story.
One man tacked his complaints to the door of a Catholic church. Do people know your story?
Your stories will change our destiny.
BACKGROUND:
IMPACT:
Photo by eskimoblood.
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