Human Rights Day

Today is Human Rights Day: The United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on this day in 1948.

This year’s Human Rights Day slogan is “Dignity, Freedom, and Justice for All”.

The 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will be celebrated on 10 December 2023. Ahead of this milestone, starting today, the UN will launch a year-long campaign to showcase the UDHR by focusing on its legacy, relevance and activism.

In the decades since the adoption of the UDHR, it has served as the foundation for an expanding system of human rights protection that today focuses also on vulnerable groups such as persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and migrants.

However, the promise of the UDHR, of dignity and equality in rights, has been under a sustained assault in recent years. As the world faces challenges new and ongoing – pandemics, conflicts, exploding inequalities, morally bankrupt global financial system, racism, climate change – the values, and rights enshrined in the UDHR provide guideposts for our collective actions that do not leave anyone behind.

The year-long campaign seeks to increase knowledge of the UDHR as a foundational blueprint for taking concrete actions to stand up for human rights and tackle pressing global issues today.

Agenda:

1. Journal queries

2. Choose next steps

3. Take the human rights pledge

1. Journal queries:

This week of advent my theme is "Striving to find unity and peace with all the people of the world".

What areas of human rights work are calling to me now?
What are possible next steps?

2. Choose next steps:

Here is what I am committed to do next--

1. Learn more about environmental rights as human rights; introduce education and action on human rights into my Quaker earth care efforts.

 

2. Learn more about the parts of the world that are most affected by climate change, and the human implications (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Chad, Haiti, Kenya...)

3. Join zoom city council meetings, especially when they involve climate, sustainability, and human rights issues.

 

3. Take the human rights pledge:
Your commitment to human rights:
I will respect your rights regardless of who you are. I will uphold your rights even when I disagree with you.

When anyone's human rights are denied, everyone's rights are undermined, so I will STAND UP.

I will raise my voice. I will take action. I will use my rights to stand up for your rights.

TAKE THE PLEDGE