Human Rights Defenders

The Amnesty Group in GMS set up a competition to write a comic to support Human Rights Defenders. The winner will be announced soon. Here the members write for the website.

Who are we?

We are part of the amnesty youth group at Great Marlow School. Attending meetings every Friday at lunch, we discuss different campaigns and acts that could possibly help other people around the world have hope and freedom. As part of one of our acts for the freedom of speech, members of the youth group didn’t talk for the whole school day and even taped their mouths shut.

What is our new campaign?

Our new campaign is to support human rights defenders; people standing up for freedom and equality in their local communities. However, they need backup, as they are being attacked for standing up for their beliefs and rights!

We decided upon a creative approach to spreading awareness: a comic competition. Students would be able to use either Vitalina Koval or Nonhle Mbuthuma’s stories to inspire a comic.

Vitalina is a highly respected member of Ukraine’s LGBT+ community, and has co-founded a community centre that provides a rare safety net or LGBT+ people. However, she has seen an increase in far-right violence, and been the victim of attacks and threats.

Nonhle, from South Africa, has been leading a peaceful struggle against a company that wants to mine on her community’s ancestral land. As a result, she has faced intimidation, harassment and death threats. A fellow campaigner has been killed.

The point of the campaign was to celebrate real-life superheroes, who are fighting everyday for their’s and many others rights, and to raise much needed awareness. Students should have submitted their work on paper (though it could have been done digitally and printed out) by the 28th June, to Mr Philpott in T1. They will be judged by a special panel, with a winning prize – an Amazon gift voucher.