Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute

It’s election season! Join us for a student-led dialogue centering on issues of voting and voter participation at the local, state, and national levels. This dialogue will feature small group discussions facilitated by experts, followed by a Q&A session with UConn faculty and community partners. Participants will also get the opportunity to register to vote!

This event is held in collaboration with the University of Connecticut’s Undergraduate Student Government, Community Outreach, Dodd Impact’s Democracy and Dialogues Initiative, the Office of Outreach and Engagement and co-created by members of the Human Rights and Action Learning community.

 Light refreshments will be provided.

Strategies to Address Structural Barriers to Economic Inclusion and Well-being Among Families Experiencing Poverty in the United States

Over the past quarter century, significant strides have been made in reducing child poverty, largely due to increased investments in the social safety net for children. Our nation has learned a lot about what works to reduce child poverty. However, significant challenges to sustaining and continuing this progress remain. In particular, stark disparities in child poverty among racial and ethnic lines, for children in immigrant families, and by family structure persist. In addition, the focus of support has shifted towards working families near or above the poverty line, inadvertently leaving behind children and families experiencing deep poverty.

Dr. Thomson will share findings across multiple projects designed to better understand the structural barriers to economic inclusion and wellbeing for families of color, immigrant families, and those experiencing deep poverty. She will highlight policy levers and programmatic strategies that show promise for addressing those barriers, promoting economic inclusion, and improving wellbeing for all children and families.

Sponsored by the Department of Human Development & Family Sciences, with generous support from the Luckey family.

If you require an accommodation to participate in this event, please contact the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at 860.486.4049 or cynthia.stewart@uconn.edu by Wednesday, October 2^nd.

About This Event

This lecture will delve into migration and time-making projects, examining both human and animal movement. Instead of solely focusing on traditional ‘pull-push’ factors of human migration, Columba González-Duarte will propose a framework for understanding multispecies mobility through the connections between monarch and human migration. Participants will engage with the concept of migration as micropolitics, challenging racialized border control and exploring more-than-human mobility justice that questions the naturalization of state borders.

Lunch will be served! Kindly register below.

About Our Guest

Columba González-Duarte

Assistant Professor, The New School for Social Research

Pursuing a greater understanding of the relationship between monarch butterflies and the people and communities they interact with has carried Dr. Columba Gonzalez-Duarte far, connecting her roots in Mexico to Toronto and to her new home in New York City. Through her research, Columba examines the conservation dynamics of the monarch butterfly across three nations, analyzing the connections between NAFTA’s agri-food industry, labor migration, and the decline of the monarch population. She also collaborates with scientific and Indigenous communities in Canada, the United States, and Mexico to document their knowledge and ways of relating to migratory insects. Dr. Gonzalez-Duarte’s academic practice is shaped by feminist ethics of care, promoting a different form of justice that values the well-being of both humans and more-than-humans during their migratory journeys across North America.

To gain a deeper understanding of her research, publications, student projects, and media, please visit www.columbagonzalez.com.

UConn’s El Instituto (Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies) awarded small seed grants to support faculty-led workshops, reading groups or other research, on any theme of relevance to Latine, Latin American or Caribbean studies. Please join us this fall semester in this 4 part series of events. Light Refreshments Served. Limited space, RSVP today!

1st Event:

“Narrativas de Cambio: Latino Stories for Climate and Environmental Justice,” by Dr. Mayra I. Rodríguez

In this presentation, Dr. Rodriguez explores three case studies from Latino communities in Connecticut (Hartford, Bridgeport and Willimantic), highlighting diverse storytelling and community knowledge exchange processes that are being utilized to advance environmental and climate justice.

Domestic Violence is a pervading issue across our world. During the fiscal year of 2021, over 38,989 people sought domestic violence services in our state of Connecticut alone. This number is not reflective of all those who endure domestic violence, as violence often goes unreported. We need to shatter the silence. Through education, engagement, and empowerment, this program will shed light on domestic violence and create social change.

Join us as we learn, listen, and reflect through small group discussions with facilitators, and engage with experts in domestic violence services about this critical issue.

This event is hosted by the Democracy & Dialogues Initiative, a program of Dodd Human Rights Impact, The Alyssiah Wiley Program, UConn’s Women Center, and UConn Hartford.

A light lunch will be provided at 11:30am.

The Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute invites all undergraduate students interested in human rights to attend an information session about our 4+1 Accelerated Master of Arts Program! HRI’s Director of Graduate Studies, Dr. David Richards, and Educational Program Administrator, Dr. Alyssa Webb, will be present and ready to answer questions about the MA program, and how it may complement prospective students’ professional aspirations.

Is there a topic that you believe demands discussion but that you fear will prove too polarizing for civil conversation? Do you avoid organizing such a discussion because you are unsure of how to ensure meaningful engagement across difference? Are you interested in honing your skills of engaging in conversation with people who think differently from you? If so, please join us for this workshop which will focus on the following subjects:

• basic theories of, and approaches to, conflict resolution-based dialogue;
• facilitating difficult conversations in a structured-dialogue setting;
• creating and hosting dialogues (focusing on the Encounters dialogue model)
• roll-playing practice your new dialogic skills

This event is hosted by the Democracy & Dialogues Initiative, a program of Dodd Human Rights Impact

About This Event

Projecte Úter is a collaborative drawing initiative focused on sexual and reproductive freedom. Beginning as a research project on abortion stories in Spain, it evolved into a large visual representation of these stories, along with themes of abortion, community building, and bodily autonomy. Claiming visual and oral storytelling as an organic and universal language, it takes the shape of a large format drawing that is presented through oral presentations.

Our Purpose:

• To share and communicate personal stories related to sexual and reproductive health.
• To map the forces that shape our current reality regarding abortion, and provide a comprehensive view to help visualize how everything is interconnected.
• To create a space for dialogue and connection among diverse individuals, scholars, feminists and social movements advocates.

About Our Guest

Carles García O’Dowd

Artist and Organizer

Carles García O’Dowd, born in 1988, is an artist based in New York with Spanish-Irish roots from Palma, Mallorca. His work is influenced by activism, pop culture, and cartoons. Using drawing and printmaking, he delves into the complexities of modern societies through a fictional universe. His detailed drawings encourage viewers to rethink their perspectives and spark discussions by creating new narratives for our globalized world.

For more on Carles’s work, visit www.carlesgod.com.

The Residue of Memory is an interactive two-part workshop exploring the ways past events leave their mark in art.

Learn more about art objects that forge a tangible link to the past through close looking and discussion of work by Yishai Jusidman and Binh Danh. Then make your own cyanotype print using autumn leaves.

FREE.

21st-century America is increasingly polarized over policing. From yard signs to public protests, from political rhetoric to legislative acts, tension over the role and status of police grips us daily. Why are we so divided over this issue? Are there new approaches that might find broader support? Join us for a dialogue on this most critically important subject in which we will explore the development of policing in our democracy and discuss the present-day landscape of law enforcement, community relations, individual rights, and possible ways forward from our current landscape. Facilitated, small-group conversations will be followed by a Q&A with guest scholars and activists. You are warmly and respectfully encouraged to come speak from your heart about this subject that lies at the shared heart of the “Land of the Free.”

This event is hosted by Democracy  and Dialogues Initiative, The Social Work & Law Enforcement (SWLE), and the CT Collaborative

About This Event

The US National Contact Point is a unique human rights complaints mechanism. David Sullivan serves in this role and will outline what the mechanism does, how it is being improved in line with international developments and US policy commitments, and where it fits within the landscape of remedy for corporate human right violations.

About Our Guest

David Sullivan was named the U.S. National Contact Point (NCP) for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (on Responsible Business Conduct), and Senior Adviser on Corporate Social Responsibility in November 2021. In this capacity he promotes business conduct that is not only commercially viable, but also conducted in a manner consistent with high standards related to labor, the environment, human rights, and other sustainability factors. The role of the NCP is to promote awareness of the OECD Guidelines, to facilitate their practical application, and to seek to resolve, through mediation or conciliation, disputes or “specific instances” regarding an enterprise’s conduct.

Previously, David was a senior State Department attorney. He joined the Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser in 1998, and since then served as an Attorney-Adviser in offices for international claims, law enforcement, the Western Hemisphere, employment and ethics, human rights, and economic and business affairs. He also served as the senior legal adviser to the U.S. Mission to the UN in Geneva.

David’s prior legal work has been with the Department of the Treasury, White & Case, and the Alaska Supreme Court. He has also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Eswatini and worked for IBM. David has a law degree from Yale Law School, a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and a bachelor’s degree from Yale College. He is from Cleveland, Ohio.

This workshop is sponsored by the Business & Human Rights Initiative, part of the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute’s Dodd Human Rights Impact Programs.

UConn’s El Instituto (Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies) awarded small seed grants to support faculty-led workshops, reading groups or other research, on any theme of relevance to Latine, Latin American or Caribbean studies. Please join us this fall semester in this 4 part series of events. Light Refreshments Served. Limited space, RSVP today!

2nd Event:

“Humility in Practices of Transitional Justice: the case of Campo Algodonero, Mexico,” by Dr. Robin Adèle Greeley 

In 2009, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered the Mexican state to carry out a comprehensive program of reparations in the landmark case of Campo Algodonero. The Court found the Mexican state had failed to prevent the murders in 2001 of three young women in Ciudad Juárez. Part of a wave of femicides that continue to afflict women in Mexico, the Campo Algodonero murders sparked a pivotal turn in the Court’s rulings in cases of gender violence. As part of the reparations, the Court ordered the Mexican state to apologize and to build a memorial. Yet since its inauguration in 2011, the Campo Algodonero memorial has been a site not of public commemoration, but of vociferous contestation by the principal audience for which it was intended: the families of the murdered women. This talk explores why the seemingly humble State apology, delivered at the memorial site, was vehemently rejected by the victims’ families, and what this can tell us about the role of humility in practices of transitional justice.