Month: March 2022

Human Rights Close to Home Youth Action Summit

Posted on March 28, 2022May 17, 2022 by Branzell, Alex

We're pleased to announce the first annual Human Rights Close to Home Youth Action Summit!

We are offering Connecticut students an opportunity to participate in the Youth Action Summit, a major event within the Human Rights Close to Home initiative, which aims to promote youth involvement and advocacy in human rights around Connecticut. This Youth Action Summit is created and led by the Human Rights Close to Home Youth Advisory team. This is a one-day educational space for young activists and allies from around CT to come together as a community. Our goal is to provide resources and support to all attendees so that they can continue fighting for their human rights in their communities long after the Summit concludes.

Throughout the Youth Action Summit, students will participate in workshops and meet a wide range of speakers, from professional human rights advocates to fellow youth activists. Whether you are a student or educator, we welcome you to participate.

At this time, the Youth Action Summit is open to Connecticut high school students only.
If you are an educator and are in need of transportation assistance, please contact Dr. Ian McGregor at ian.mcgregor@uconn.edu

1) Youth In Action: Robert F. Kennedy said “Each time a man stands up for an idea, or strikes out against injustice, or acts to improve the lots of others, he sends a tiny ripple of hope …those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression…” The actions of individuals, no matter how small, matter in creating a world in which the rights of others are protected.

2) Intersectional Human Rights: Human Rights are universal, yet everyone undergoes and brings to the table their own unique experiences and identities. Supporting human rights means more than just acknowledging, it means understanding and living out these intersections of race, gender, sexuality, class, ability and more everyday.

3) Defenders and Leaders Close To Home: Eleanor Roosevelt famously said that unless human rights have meaning in the “little places, close to home,” they have little meaning anywhere. Human Rights are not “over-there” issues and have as much meaning in the state of Connecticut as they do in countries on the other side of the world.

4) Youth Teaching Youth: Students are frequently the best teachers! The sharing of student experiences contributes to the development of a more complex world view for a youthful generation. Engaging with the experiences of your peers helps to create a more knowledgeable and engaged generation of activists!

5) Get Up, Stand Up For Your Rights: It’s easy to lose faith these days. Looking for the bright spots amongst the dark; those people, groups or programs speaking and standing up to say “We will” and “We can” is important in creating a more just, equitable, human rights friendly world.

Kevin Maysonet, Manchester High School
Emily Aubrey, Conard High School
Trisha Chennuru, Brookfield High School
Casey Pratt, Brookfield High School
Skylar Mattice, Brookfield High School
Shirin Unvala, Center for Global Studies, Brien McMahon High School
Aureliana Brown, Manchester High School
Lydia Griffin, Conard High School
Kyra Cummins, Brookfield High School
Bella De Souza, University of Connecticut
Henry Avery, Center for Global Studies, Brien McMahon High School
Parisa Arastu, Center for Global Studies, Brien McMahon High School
Hayat Yussuf, Brookfield High School
Katie McCluney, University of Connecticut
Samantha Gove, University of Connecticut

Human Rights Close to Home (HRCH) engages educators and youth in the development and implementation of human rights education for civic action. We empower teachers with the knowledge, skills, values, and relationships to become expert human rights and civics educators. We foster youth leadership through experiential learning opportunities that have a direct impact on our youth and their communities.

Human Rights Close to Home is a program of Dodd Impact, a part of the Human Rights Institute at UConn.

Coupling & Coupling Compromises in Supplier Factories’ Responses to Worker Activism

Posted on March 1, 2022June 5, 2023 by Branzell, Alex

About This Workshop:

The Business and Human Rights Workshop is dedicated to the development and discussion of works-in-progress and other non-published academic research. Read below for the abstract of Prof. Jodi Short's upcoming paper, the focus of this workshop.

Many companies have adopted corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies in response to activist pressure, but ensuring the implementation of these policies is challenging. Recognizing the paucity of research on the effect of contentious activism on companies’ coupling of CSR policies and practices in the private politics and (de)coupling literatures, we posit that companies engage in “coupling compromises” when faced with such institutional pressure—improving their practices and more tightly coupling them with CSR policies in the domain contested by activists, but relaxing the coupling of policy and practice in competing CSR domains. Furthermore, we theorize that the nature and extent of coupling compromises can be explained by the interaction of activism with organizational structures that construct managerial perceptions of issue salience and internal frictions to change. We test our theory in the context of global supply chain factories’ compliance with CSR policies on working conditions when they face local worker activism. Analyzing 3,495 audits of 2,352 factories in 114 Chinese cities from 2012 to 2015, we find that worker activism over wages-and-benefits issues pushes factories to improve their wages-and-benefits practices and couple them more tightly with CSR policies, but these factories concurrently loosen the coupling between policy and practice in the domain of occupational health and safety. Both effects are stronger in factories with organizational structures that foreground the salience of wages and benefits issues and mitigate friction to changing organizational practices. These findings make significant contributions to the literatures on private politics, (de)coupling, and global supply chain labor practices.

Dialogues for Common Ground: American Identity & Connecticut’s Civic Reconstruction

Posted on March 1, 2022March 21, 2022 by Branzell, Alex

Democracy is a Connecticut tradition. The “Constitution State” has for centuries been a place of evolving civic life, and has often inspired and informed the national approach to the rights of individuals and the electoral process. The 21st century brings new challenges and opportunities to innovative political engagement: locally, the “Land of Steady Habits” is a racially and ethnically diverse, economically unequal, and politically decentralized state; nationally, our democracy is under pressure from polarization, disinformation, and even violence. How might Connecticut communities harness the state’s long history of political innovation and reconstruct robust civic practices to address our present moment and look to the future?

The “American Identity and Connecticut’s Civic Reconstruction” program brings the conversation back to first principles, to the founding of the American democratic experiment, and aims to foster meaningful and informed discussion around the values that form the basis of our nation. In doing so, it encourages everyone to learn more about our shared history and to value and participate in our democracy. These online participatory conversations will be run on the “Encounters” dialogue model; read more about it here.

You are warmly invited to take part in a series of interactive explorations of critical documents of American identity and their role in our lives today: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

This program aims to foster meaningful and informed discussion around the values that form the basis of our national experience by bringing the conversation back to first principles, to the founding of the American democratic experiment. In doing so, it encourages us to learn more about our shared history and to value and participate in our democracy. To participate, please register below.

The Encounters Series is dedicated to fostering unexpected conversations around divisive issues and obscure knowledge. The program dives deeply into subjects that are of interest to the Greater Hartford community through facilitated, small-group dialogues followed by a question-and-answer style conversation with UConn faculty and community partners.

The Democracy & Dialogues Initiative is part of Dodd Human Rights Impact and supported by the Office of Global Affairs, the Office of the Provost, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, Humanities Institute, UConn Extension, and the Division of Student Affairs’ Parent's Fund.

Environmental Rights in Cultural Context – Perspectives from Law and Anthropology

Posted on March 1, 2022March 23, 2022 by Branzell, Alex

Environmental rights, such as the right to a healthy or clean environment, are experiencing increasing recognition within domestic constitutions as well as international human rights instruments and institutions. In parallel, more ecocentric approaches promote so-called rights of nature. Using methods of law and anthropology, this talk will assess to what extent such rights respond to environmental stress of local communities exposed, for instance, to large scale mining, hydro dams or climate change.

Dirk Hanschel studied law at the Universities of Marburg and Heidelberg, Germany, as well as the London School of Economics (LSE), before taking his doctoral/post-doctoral degrees at the University of Mannheim, Germany. He furthermore holds a Master of Comparative Law (Mannheim/Adelaide). After working as a reader at the University of Aberdeen for around two years, he became a professor of German, European and International Public Law at the University of Halle, Germany, in 2015. His research focuses inter alia on topics of environmental law and human rights, topics of comparative constitutional law (such as federalism), the law of international organizations, as well as law and anthropology. In 2019 he became a Fellow at the Max-Planck-Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, where he conducts an interdisciplinary project on "Environmental Rights in Cultural Context", together with a group of doctoral and post-doctoral scholars. In autumn 2021 he was appointed Martin Flynn Global Law Professor at UConn Law School.

Suffer the Children: A Theoretical Foundation for the Human Rights of the Child

Posted on March 1, 2022August 16, 2022 by Branzell, Alex

Join us for a talk by longtime member of the Research Program on Economic and Social Rights Richard P. Hiskes, whose widely acclaimed new book addresses the centrality of social and economic rights within a broader discussion of why taking children's human rights seriously turns conventional human rights theory upside down. The book establishes the theoretical foundation for prioritizing social and economic rights in the name of children’s human rights. Read more about the book here.

Richard P. Hiskes is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Human Rights at the University of Connecticut. As a founding faculty member of the Human Rights Institute (HRI) he served as Associate Director and Director of Undergraduate Programs, including the Human Rights Major. He was Editor of the Journal of Human Rights for many years, and twice selected as President of the Human Rights Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA).

He is the author of many books and articles in political theory generally and human rights theory in particular. His human rights work focuses on the theory of environmental human rights and on the human rights of children. His 2009 book, The Human Right to a Green Future: Environmental Rights and Intergenerational Justice (Cambridge), won the 2010 award for the best book in human rights from the American Political Science Association. His most recent book is Suffer the Children: A Theoretical Foundation for the Human Rights of the Child (Oxford, 2021).

The Economic & Social Rights Group (ESRG) is an interdisciplinary monthly gathering of faculty and graduate students who meet to share ongoing research and to discuss current scholarship around economic and social rights. It is the central to the mission of the Research Program on Economic & Social Rights. The Research Program on Economic & Social Rights brings more than a dozen UConn faculty together with over 30 affiliated scholars from across the United States and Canada. Together, we have generated numerous graduate and undergraduate courses, several edited volumes, multiple co-authored articles, and the National Science Foundation-funded Socio-Economic Rights Fulfillment Index (SERF Index).

The mission of the Collaboratory on School and Child Health (CSCH) is to facilitate innovative and impactful connections across research, policy, and practice arenas to advance equity in school and child health. CSCH is committed to anti-racist work that prioritizes inclusion, reduces disparities, and creates systemic change.

CSCH serves as a central resource to University and external partners engaged in efforts that inform healthy, safe, supportive, and engaging environments for all children. The Collaboratory strives to create a positive environment that supports communication, knowledge sharing, and collaborative work among a diverse network of members in pursuit of this shared aim. Our collaborations intentionally use an inclusive, team- and relationship-based approach to broaden capacity for interconnected and cross-disciplinary projects that tackle the most pressing and complex issues in school and child health.

The Department of Human Development & Family Sciences (HDFS) focuses its research, teaching, and public engagement on a multidisciplinary understanding of 1) healthy development and wellbeing of individuals and families over the lifespan, 2) interactions and processes within families, and 3) individuals and families in societal and cultural contexts.

We are committed to excellence in research, teaching, and public engagement through our core values of individualized mentoring, innovation and leadership, diversity and equity, and applied/translational science.

Dialogues for Common Ground: American Identity & Connecticut’s Civic Reconstruction

Posted on March 1, 2022March 29, 2022 by Branzell, Alex

This series of dialogues is funded by Connecticut Humanities through the A More Perfect Union granting program of the National Endowment for the Humanities

Youth Seeking Refuge: U.S. Immigration Policy, Mobility Justice, & Children’s Rights

Posted on March 1, 2022April 11, 2022 by Branzell, Alex

Join Us!
On Monday April 11th, Dodd Impact, El Instituto, and the Human Rights Institute, in collaboration with Skidmore College, invite you to the opening of an exhibit on children’s art created in the MPP camp of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

To mark the opening of the exhibit, a panel of faculty and activists will discuss the current situation of children in refugee camps created by the United States’ “Remain in Mexico” policy, as well as pressing concerns of youth who have arrived in CT.

In person: The Colloquium will be hosted in the Konover Auditorium in the
Dodd Center for Human Rights - DODD 166.

Livestream: Join us online at 1:00pm via http://www.kaltura.com/tiny/uyrei
Joining us virtually? You can still submit a question for the Q&A by clicking here.

Dr. Anne Gebelein, University of Connecticut
Associate Director of El Instituto and
Associate Professor in Residence, Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Dr. Gebelein received her doctorate, M. Phil., and Master’s in Hispanic Literatures from Yale University Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese. Prior to her position at UConn, she worked as an educational consultant for the Anti-Defamation League and the Coordinating Council for Children in Crisis, and as a translator in health care and law enforcement settings. Anne Gebelein teaches a wide variety of courses in Latino and Latin American Studies, with a focus on migration, human rights, and border studies. She is faculty Co-Chair of Service Learning for the university, the ECE coordinator for Latin American Studies, and she directs community outreach efforts for El Instituto.

Dr. Diana Barnes, Skidmore College
Senior Teaching Professor of Spanish

Diana Barnes, PhD, is a Senior Teaching Professor at Skidmore College. She began crossing the US/Mexico border as a toddler with her family at the San Ysidro point of entry near San Diego to visit her grandfather in Sonora, Mexico. Over the decades, she has witnessed not only changes to the physical fence itself, but as well, the construct’s mythical, psychological, and political forces that project from the steel and concrete barrier. Professor Barnes teaches courses about the US/Mexico border, as well as Spanish language & literature. As a life-long border crosser she holds a fundamental belief that the study of geographically contrived lines of division provides a unique critical lens into the state of humanity

Lucca Lucero de Alva,
Volunteer teacher in MPP Camp, Ciudad Juárez;
World Organization for Peace representative

Born in Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, Lucero Claudia De Alva Fernandez is an industrial engineer by trade, currently pursuing a master’s degree in Business Administration. She is the mother of 4 adult children--Daniela, Victoria Eugenia, Juan Pablo and Martha Isabel—and a business-owner. Her company, English Education Services, with provides English-Spanish translation, classes and interpreting services to the maquiladora industry since 1999.

Lucero is the author of the children's story "Pita y los girasoles" from which a peace project called "Sembrando Paz" (Sowing Peace) was born, through which she has been able to reach more than 50,000 children in schools in the state of Chihuahua and throughout the country, as well as some schools in the United States.

Since 2019 Lucero has been in charge of the "Children and Youth for Peace" program, a title awarded by the World Organization for Peace. In 2018 she was named "Distinguished Woman" of Juarez by the Ibero-American Women's Group and nominated for the title "Woman of the Year" by the group of professional women of Cd. Juarez.

Lucero is a dedicated volunteer and lover of the children of her city and the world. She volunteers in support of our migrant brothers and sisters, for whom she have been working since February 13, 2019, the day the first part of a caravan of migrants arrived in Ciudad Juarez. She have been part of the team that built the network of shelters for migrants, and feels fortunate to enable spaces within shelters that function as schools for the children who live in them, managing to get their education certified by the Federal Government (Secretary of Public Education).

The youngest asylum seekers at our southern border have something to say about the U.S. policies that have left them stranded in one of the most dangerous cities in the world. See what happens when policy hits the ground in Ciudad Juarez, through the eyes of a child.

In all, thirty-two paintings make up the exhibit. Each is produced by children living in shelters or on the streets in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. They reveal images of young migrants’ homes, journeys, fears, and hopes.

View the Exhibit

The exhibit "Painting the Border: A Child's Voice" began as a project to offer a day of fun in a safe space to the youngest MPP recipients in Ciudad Juárez. The project was a collaborative effort initiated by Diana Barnes, a Skidmore College Senior Teaching Professor, and organized in Juárez by World Organization for Peace representative and children's author Lucero de Alva. El Paso muralist Cimi Alvarado worked with the young painters as well, teaching them about storytelling through art, and guiding them to paint their own stories.

The day of fun was held on August 21, 2019, months after the MPP was initiated, and less than three weeks after a gunman opened fire in an El Paso Walmart, targeting Mexican shoppers and killing 23 people, including children. Some of the Juárez migrant children were aware of the deadly attack when they painted their fears of the violence that surrounded them.

The young artists, ages 4 - 18, were among the more than 71,000 asylum seekers stranded in Mexico border cities between January 2019 and January 2021, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. They were mainly from Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.

Today, two and a half years after the paintings were produced, a Biden-era version of the MPP is still in place. Migrants continue to be refused entry under this policy and others, designed to reinforce a myriad of iterations of the wall that separates the United States from Mexico.

About the Youth Action Summit

Students & Teachers – Register Now!

Call for Student Proposals

Youth Summit Sub-Themes

HRCH Youth Advisory Team

Past Youth Action Summits

About the Program:

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March 22 – The Declaration of Independence

April 5 – The Constitution

May 3 – The Bill of Rights

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Presenter:

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About the Research Program on Economic & Social Rights at HRI

About the Collaboratory on School & Child Health at InCHIP

About the Department of Human Development & Family Sciences

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March 22 – The Declaration of Independence

April 5 – The Constitution

May 3 – The Bill of Rights

Panel Discussion

Speakers

Dr. Anne Gebelein, University of Connecticut

Dr. Diana Barnes, Skidmore College

Lucca Lucero de Alva, MPP Camp Ciudad Juárez

Katia Daley, CT Students for a Dream

Exhibition Debut – “Painting the Border: A Child’s Voice”