Write For Rights with Amnesty International

I spent part of my weekend with our local Amnesty group, participating in the annual Write For Rights Day. Amnesty International chooses 10 cases to focus on for this event each year, and groups hold public events across the world encouraging people to write letters in support of the cases. Our words matter!

Our local group has been doing this for 5 years, and every year it grows -- this year there were over 75 participants and 497 letters written. It's a really great event.

I've been helping out for the past two years doing a bit of Craftivism. This year I ran the craft table where we were created postcards for two of the individuals featured, and a banner of support for another. Handmade items give people the opportunity to really get their shared humanity across, and to encourage the feel of hands reaching out to one another. It's also a colourful and cheerful way to encourage those people who are facing political pressures, and to engage people here and now at events like this -- it's even easy for children to join in.

And of course, I got some letter writing in as well.

If you weren't at a Write for Rights event in your neighbourhood, you can still check out the dedicated page at Amnesty Canada for these 10 cases: they still need more letters sent on their behalf (if you're not in Canada like I am, just check the Write for Rights page for your country for the correct addresses for you to use). The focus this year was on ten women's human rights defenders, so do check them out and if you are so inclined - send out a letter.