Events

Rwanda’s Restorative Journey: Living Alongside Your Enemy

Posted on January 1, 2023January 25, 2023 by Branzell, Alex

Three days into the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi, Carl and Teresa Wilkens made the heart wrenching decision that she would take their young children to safety, and he would stay at their home in Kigali and try to help. Neither had any idea that during the next 100 days more than a million people would be slaughtered, often by their neighbors.

Through the sharing of first-hand accounts of the catastrophic 1994 genocide and the country’s rebuilding journey that followed, Carl will discuss restorative justice and practices and engage us in guided conversations about what those practices mean today, particularly in the realm of rebuilding trust.

As a humanitarian aid worker, Carl Wilkens was one of two Americans who refused to leave Rwanda as thousands of expatriates and UN soldiers fled the country in the face of what is now known as the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi. Working together with Rwandan colleagues they brought food, water, and medicine to orphans trapped around the city.

These days Wilkens travels around the globe using the transformative process of storytelling and restorative practices to explore topics such as polarization, harmful conflict, and belonging. He is the Co-founder and Director of World Outside My Shoes.

"I'm Not Leaving"

In advance of the event, we encourage you to watch the 40-minute documentary, I'm Not Leaving, available in full & free on YouTube.

This 40-minute documentary shares snapshots of the genocide through the eyes of Carl and his wife Teresa along with: Gasigwa, a courageous Rwandan colleague whose home became a safe-house, Laura from the US Embassy who wrestled with Washington, DC to not abandon their mission, and Phil, one of the handful of UN peacekeepers who volunteered to stay in Rwanda and were tenuously hanging on to save lives. Their gut-wrenching choices and unexpected alliances formed during the 100 days of slaughter leave us with a surprising sense of hope and agency.

Exhibition Closing Reception: Madeline Baird on ‘Embodied Borders’

Posted on January 1, 2023February 2, 2023 by Branzell, Alex

We welcome you to join us for a closing reception to celebrate and discuss the most recent exhibition in the hall of The Dodd Center for Human Rights with the photographer. Madeline Baird's 'Embodied Borders' reveals the human toll of the exportation of U.S. border enforcement through a series of captivating photographs.

Madeline Baird is a PhD student in Anthropology at UConn. Prior to enrolling at UConn, Madeline earned an MSc from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and worked for a decade supporting public health program design and community-based research. Her current research employs ethnographic methods to explore constructions of health inequity, human rights, and healing in Latin America.

In recent decades, the extension of U.S. immigration and border enforcement policies to countries in Central America increasingly pressures migrant populations seeking refuge in the U.S. to travel the most remote and dangerous passages to the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2022, more than 200,000 migrants traversed the Darien Gap known to be one of the most dangerous sections of the journey through Central America. This series of photographs documents the embodied impact of the exportation of U.S. border enforcement 2,500 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border for migrants in transit through Panama.

Human Rights Graduate Research Forum

Posted on January 1, 2023April 15, 2023 by

The Human Rights Graduate Research Forum provides an opportunity for graduate students in any discipline or school doing human rights-related work to receive feedback from peers and faculty in an informal and supportive environment. These forums occur once per month during the academic year. Each session is split between the student researcher's presentation and time reserved for questions and feedback.

We welcome graduate students and faculty from any discipline or school to attend. UConn graduate students doing human rights-related work are encouraged to sign up to discuss their work in a future forum.

Global Labor Rights Enforcement in Small and Medium-Sized Textile Firms
Wednesday, February 8, 2023 | 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Imge Akaslan

SMEs, enterprises that have 10 to 250 employees, account for two-thirds of all jobs worldwide, yet this significant segment of the global supply chain is heavily under-researched in contemporary scholarship on labor rights and policy approaches to labor rights protection often overlook their unique challenges. Through the in-depth study of SMEs in the Turkish textile industry, this project both advances our understanding of how small enterprises function, and also identifies new actors which influence variation in the enforcement of labor rights standards. Omitting SMEs as an entity leads to underestimation of some subset of actors’ role on enforcement of labor rights. Therefore, one of the main goals of this dissertation is to understand how intermediary actors influence the translation of labor rights norms into labor rights standards. By understanding the incentives of possible translators, we can then shape those incentives to influence the behavior of those translators and potentially improve labor standards in global supply chains. Ultimately, my findings will inform policy dialogues and advocacy efforts aimed at enhancing the human dignity of workers in global supply chains, no matter the size of the firm in which they work.

Imge Akaslan is a PhD candidate at the University of Connecticut, Political Science Department. Her dissertation research examines the variation in the enforcement of labor standards in small and medium-sized enterprises and identifies new actors which influence the enforcement of labor standards in global supply chains. Imge holds a BS in global and international affairs from Middle East Technical University (Turkey) and an MA in political science from Binghamton University (SUNY).

The Electric Vehicle Revolution: From a Human Rights Angle
Wednesday, March 8, 2023 | 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Francesco Rouhana

Electric vehicles (EVs) have evolved rapidly owing to technological advancements and a growing interest in renewable energy to eliminate transportation’s dependency on fossil fuels and mitigate the effects of climate change. While EVs could revolutionize the transportation industry, they could jeopardize social equity and environmental stewardship efforts. Current studies on transportation electrification often fail to evaluate the EV revolution implications in human rights terms. International human rights law provides universally accepted norms, standards, baseline indicators, and modes of inquiry and reporting that could significantly advance and sharpen impact analysis. In this study, we explored the potential human rights implications that EVs pose for individuals and societies throughout their life cycle. Using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights-based treaties as our baseline, we analyzed the existing and likely EVs’ impacts on human rights. We identified potential measures to address human rights violations. Stakeholders (governments, private sectors, civil society) need to work closely together to make the transition to low-carbon transportation more equitable and sustainable.

Exclusion and Embrace: Secondary Refugee Students and A Pedagogy of Belonging
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 | 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm
Sara Harvel

America has an identity problem. People in America experience degrees of political, social, and economic rights that affect the extent to which they feel included or excluded from the nation. Social and racial hierarchies exist in part because of our settler colonial history, immigration policies, and our narrow perception of who can be American. The problem of exclusion in America is highlighted in how people perceive refugees. Historically, policies and practices communicate a hierarchy of acceptance to refugees that complicates the degree to which they experience membership and belonging. This is especially true for refugee secondary students in public schools.

To refugee secondary students, schools are sites of socialization where they learn cultural norms while establishing a sense of personal identity in a new environment. To refugee secondary students, schools are structures, composed of individual people, that either extend membership or not. These schools can either reproduce social injustices and maintain status quo or push against structural inequities and promote belonging. Research has shown that peer acceptance is one of the most important factors contributing to refugee student sense of belonging. However, many students do not know how to interact with people who are different from themselves. Society needs students to interact and extend belonging to one another across differences, and schools need to teach students how to do it. This study explores the relationship between curriculum, instruction, and community in order to promote a pedagogy of belonging as measured by membership, relationship, and skills. Ultimately, this study may contribute to an analysis of school communities and the varying purposes of education. I also hope to contribute to conversations about migration and education.

Sara Harvel is a doctoral candidate in the School of Education. Her focus is on Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis on social studies education and human rights. She taught internationally in Qingdao, China for several years and also did NGO work on the Thai-Myanmar border, focusing on child advocacy and social entrepreneurship. Sara is a graduate assistant with the Neag School of Education and with Dodd Impact. She is interested in human rights education, refugee and immigrant school experiences, teacher education, and school communities.

Event Canceled: Women, Life, Freedom: Iran’s Uprising & the Power of Digital Media

Posted on November 1, 2022November 17, 2022 by Branzell, Alex

Human Rights Close to Home Youth Summit

Posted on November 1, 2022January 12, 2023 by

We're pleased to announce the second annual Human Rights Close to Home Youth Summit! This one-day summit is designed by youth for youth and convenes young activists and allies from around Connecticut to learn and mobilize as a community. It will take place on January 11, 2023 at the University of Connecticut Storrs Campus.

The Youth Summit is part of Human Rights Close to Home (HRCH), which is an innovative three-year pilot program that aims to promote rights-based civic engagement by youth through human rights education.

We are offering Connecticut students an opportunity to participate in the Youth Summit, a major event within the Human Rights Close to Home initiative. This Youth 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.

In May 2022, we succeeded in gathering students from a diverse range of Connecticut high schools for an engaging day of hands-on workshops and guest speakers. Our goal was to provide powerful learning experiences that would enable and encourage attendees to take action for human rights back in their school communities.

Throughout the Youth Summit, students and educators will participate in workshops designed by youth and will interact with a wide range of speakers, from fellow youth activists to professional human rights advocates.

At this time, the Youth Summit is open only to Connecticut high school students and teachers. Please direct any questions to the HRCH Youth Advisory Team coordinators Chris Buckley, Sian Charles-Harris, and Jake Skrzypiec.

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.

Event Canceled: Women, Life, Freedom: Iran’s Uprising & the Power of Digital Media

Posted on November 1, 2022November 17, 2022 by Branzell, Alex

Ordinary Curators at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Posted on November 1, 2022December 1, 2022 by Branzell, Alex

This talk will draw on a companion article to Christine Sylvester's recent book Curating and Re-Curating the American War in Vietnam and Iraq (Oxford, 2019). Published in the International Relations journal Security Dialogue, “Curating and Re-Curating the American War in Vietnam” (2018) explores the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington as a "museum" site where "ordinary curators" authorize themselves to re-curate the war to put mortality --not state, honor or soldier heroism –at the heart of it. The piece mixes elements of new museum thinking with consideration of object assemblages composed and left at the Memorial, as well as the personal memories Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk curates into a museum to lost love in his novel The Museum of Innocence (2008). It challenges a field known for abstract theory to humanize its knowledge base by noticing ordinary civilians re-curating inherited versions of war.

Christine Sylvester is sole author of 7 books on International Relations, among them Art/Museums: International Relations Where We Least Expect It (Routledge), Feminist International Relations: An Unfinished Journey (Cambridge) and Producing Women and Progress in Zimbabwe (Heinemann). She has held the Swedish Research Council’s Kerstin Hesselgren Professorship, a Leverhulme fellowship at SOAS University of London, and was an Eminent Scholar of the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section of the International Studies Association. She was named one of Fifty Key Thinkers in International Relations (Griffiths, Roach, Solomon), and today’s article was among 20 pieces recognized for pushing academic boundaries of security thinking over the 50-year history of Security Dialogue (M. Murphy, 2020).

Civic Engagement: Our Collective Responsibility to Participate in Democracy

Posted on November 1, 2022December 9, 2022 by Branzell, Alex

In a time of unprecedented partisanship and political divisiveness, what role do we all as individuals play in fostering/cultivating a robust democracy with respect for human rights? Join us to consider these and other questions about the central role of civic engagement in the United States today.

Opening remarks will be delivered by former Senator Chris Dodd. Special guest Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut will be joining us from Washington. Professor and President Emeritus Susan Herbst will serve as moderator.

This discussion is made possible by Travelers.

Christopher J. Dodd represented Connecticut in the United States Congress for 36 years – three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and five terms in the U.S. Senate. Senator Dodd was a widely respected legislator and a key participant in nearly every major national policy debate over his four decades of public service. He authored or co-authored major legislation in the areas of education, health, financial services, foreign policy, and election reform.

Chris Murphy, United States Senator for Connecticut, has dedicated his career to public service as an advocate for Connecticut families. Senator Murphy has been a strong voice in the Senate fighting for affordable health care, sensible gun laws and a forward-looking foreign policy. As a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, he has been an outspoken proponent of diplomacy, international human rights and the need for clear-eyed American leadership abroad. Murphy currently serves as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism.

Community Dialogue on Solar Energy & Electro-Mobility: Opportunities & Challenges for a Just Energy Transition in Connecticut

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

Clean energy has become one of the key strategies to mitigate and reduce the effects of climate change, reduce oil dependency, improve the quality of our environment, and reduce household expenses on energy. However, the benefits from energy production and distribution have not been equally experienced by all communities. And the negative social and environmental consequences have not been equally shouldered. The clean energy transition may be an opportunity to redress some of those inequalities.

Please join us for an event aimed at fostering dialogue among community representatives, researchers, and policymakers interested in the equity implications of solar energy and electric mobility. Together, we’ll explore the sustainability and human rights challenges and opportunities that the clean energy revolution might bring to these sectors. We’ll focus, in particular, on the situation of historically underserved communities in Connecticut.

Faculty members from the University of Connecticut’s School of Engineering and Human Rights Institute will share their research and all participants will engage in active discussion. In-person and hybrid options for participation are available.

A collaborative venture between the Human Rights Institute and UConn’s School of Engineering, the Engineering for Human Rights initiative is focused on making human rights an integral component of effective engineering practice. We are teaching tomorrow's engineers risk management, climate resiliency, life-cycle analysis, and impact assessment. Our faculty specialize in research key to advancing human health, environmental sustainability, and industrial competitiveness. Together, we are focused on safeguarding people and nature, while advancing innovation.

The Financial Case for Systemic Social Change

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

The social and environmental challenges of today—climate change, income inequality, modern slavery and human trafficking, systemic racism, the human costs of war, the COVID-19 pandemic, among others—are complex and interconnected issues. The systemic nature of these challenges poses risks to investors across their portfolios. They also provide opportunities for investors to think about impact systemically in a manner that promotes sustainability and respect for human rights while also adding to the bottom line. Join us for a presentation and discussion with representatives of The Investment Integration Project (TIIP), a leader in system-level investing.

Presenters:

William (Bill) Burckart is the CEO of The Investment Integration Project (TIIP), an applied research and consulting services firm that helps investors manage systemic risks and opportunities. He is also co-founder of Colorful Capital, which is bringing capital support and scaffolding to enterprises founded and led by members of the broad LGBTQIA+ community, and a Fellow of the High Meadows Institute. He previously served as a member of the advisory council of the Investments & Wealth Institute’s WealthBoard 100 and as a visiting scholar at the U.S. Federal Reserve. He is the co-author of “21st Century Investing: Redirecting Financial Strategies to Drive Systems Change” (Berrett-Koehler, 2021) and co-editor of “New Frontiers of Philanthropy: A Guide to the New Tools and New Actors that Are Reshaping Global Philanthropy and Social Investing” (Oxford University Press, 2014). He is a founder or co-founder of two impact investment advisory firms, Burckart Consulting and Impact Economy LLC. His writing and perspective has been featured in Barron’s, Bloomberg, Pensions & Investments, The Guardian, Forbes, Quartz, top1000funds, Investment & Pensions Europe (I&PE), Benefits & Pensions, InvestmentNews, Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), ImpactAlpha, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and FundFire to name a few.

Kilian Moote is a Managing Director within Georgeson’s ESG advisory practice, where he is building the firm’s ESG advisory practice. As a social entrepreneur he has helped develop and managed numerous initiatives or organizations at the intersection of purpose and profit.

Kilian has 15 years of experience working with executives and investors on human and labor rights, including leading the development of the labor rights benchmark KnowTheChain and launching two collaborative funds – Funders Organized for Rights in the Global Economy and Moving the Market. Prior to joining Georgeson, Kilian developed and managed strategies on corporate accountability and public policy for the private foundation Humanity United. He has deep expertise on responsible supply chain management, having previously taught an MBA course at the University of San Francisco. As a leading advocate on social and human capital issues he’s frequently called on to provide guidance. He is currently advising The Investment Integration Project and involved in various effort to enhance human capital management and human rights standards. Kilian earned an MBA with Distinction from the Imperial College Business School in London and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of San Francisco.

About This Event:

Join Us:

About Carl Wilkens

"I'm Not Leaving"

About This Event:

Join Us:

About the Exhibition:

About the Forum:

Join us!

Sessions

About Imge Akaslan

About Francesco Rouhana

About Sara Harvel

About the Youth Summit

Students & Teachers – Register Now!

Call for Student Proposals

HRCH Youth Advisory Team

HRCH Youth Advisory Team Coordinators

About This Event:

Join us!

About Christine Sylvester:

About This Event:

At Capacity

About Christopher J. Dodd:

About Chris Murphy:

About Susan Herbst:

About This Event:

Join us!

About The Engineering For Human Rights Initiative

About This Forum:

More about Bill Burckart

More about Kilian Moote