Amnesty International spreads awareness of human rights on Locust Walk

Taut between two poles, Amnesty International at Penn’s Human Rights banner displayed many student groups’ answers to the question, “What are human rights?”

Yesterday on Locust Walk across from Steinberg-Dietrich Hall, a bright yellow banner displayed an array of perspectives on human rights around campus.

“It is a creative spin off of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” said College junior and Amnesty International at Penn President Anne Delmar.

The original declaration seeks to defend rights inherent to every human in the world, and Amnesty International at Penn is trying to get people linked into that understanding.

Delmar said Amnesty International at Penn’s mission is to spread awareness about human rights on campus. To no surprise of Delmar, student groups had some ideas of what human rights can mean.

For dance group Penn Hype, human rights are “the freedom to express ourselves.” To Penn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, they are “the right to defend others.”

Between all the student groups, the banner listed as human rights issues both basic and abstract, such as the right to affordable housing, medical care, education, freedom from fear, expression through art and equality. All of those beliefs appeared on the banner, which displayed 65 statements in total.

Lambda Alliance was one of the student groups that College sophomore Julie Sanchez thought expressed one of the many unique perspectives that Penn students had to offer. “I appreciate that each student group is able to interpret human rights in terms of their specific mission,” Sanchez said.

“Penn students are aware,” Delmar said, “but there is so much news it is hard to keep up.” From revolts in Egypt to Kony 2012, many students would have to dedicate all their free time to looking into these issues to stay fully aware. It is not necessarily Penn students’ fault that they are not as aware as they could be, according to Delmar. “Western media sources are more to blame,” Delmar said. “They set the agenda for news stories, so a lot of human rights abuses happening in the world may not get reported on.”

“Students don’t have a lot of free time,” Delmar said, “but it is important to make human rights a priority.”

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