Kristin Roehl, far right, with friends in Bangladesh (Courtesy Kristin Roehl)

Program Introduces Ordinary Americans to Human Rights Work

27 January 2009

(University of Minnesota program provides intense 10-week fellowship)

Washington — Extraordinary results are possible when ordinary people work with dedicated volunteers to promote human dignity and freedom.

The fellowship program at the University of Minnesota’s Human Rights Center allows Americans from every walk of life to spend 10 weeks working with nongovernmental organizations to promote human rights.

Four of 27 participants in the center’s 2008 Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship Program recently shared some of their experiences with America.gov.

In Burundi, the program allowed secondary school students to discuss human rights with one of their own, Benita Kaneza.

Born and raised in Burundi, Kaneza had studied at Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota for three years when she entered the center’s fellowship to return to her native land. Kaneza wanted to help educate Burundi students about human rights, a goal she was able to fulfill by volunteering with Ligue Iteka, a nongovernmental human rights organization.

Kaneza also monitored the human rights situation in Burundi’s prisons and hospitals, where patients who cannot pay their medical bills are held until their debts are settled.

Working with Ligue Iteka, Kaneza was able to raise the funds to release some women trapped by their medical debts, an effort she is determined to continue back in the United States.

People living in the United States, Kaneza said, “may be comfortable, but we can’t just sit here and forget about the rest of the world that is suffering.”

HUMAN RIGHTS WORK IS FOR ENGINEERS, TOO

In rural Nicaragua, David Hauth is helping the local population learn energy-efficient ways to obtain clean water.

“A lot of people think human rights is kind of advocacy for torture victims and policy and things like that. But for me, it’s just as much about improving people’s standard of living,” says Hauth, who has degrees in mathematics and engineering, and aspires to a career in renewable energy.

By combining financial help from the center’s fellowship program with additional money donated by his church, friends and family, Hauth obtained enough to support himself for an entire year in Nicaragua, enabling him to help bring clean water and energy to underserved communities.

As a volunteer with Green Empowerment and its Nicaraguan partner Asofenix, Hauth helped build solar water-pumping facilities and microhydro systems to bring electricity and clean water to 2,000 people.

“We work by empowering the community to take responsibility and control of their own projects,” Hauth said. That includes organizing the committees to oversee the continued operation and maintenance of these facilities.

“I think a lot of people are interested in human rights and are interested in helping out and providing resources to people all over the world who aren’t as lucky,” Hauth said. “The fact is you don’t have to be anyone special. Anyone can do this; anyone can help.”

DISCOVERING NEW WAYS TO HELP CHILDREN

For Kristin Roehl, a graduate of the College of Saint Benedict in Minnesota, her stay in Bangladesh was about bringing dignity and fairness to disadvantaged children and their parents.

Volunteering with Research Initiatives, Bangladesh, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization (NGO) that promotes research on poverty alleviation, Roehl worked on the Kajoli Project, which provides enrichment training to extremely poor children who are not prepared to enter elementary school. Parents of the children must find creative ways to pay the Kajoli teachers’ salaries, such as by selling produce from a community garden.

“A lot of times when an NGO would start a school, if for some reason the funding ran out, the school would have to close,” Roehl explained. “So this way, if the community is really excited about it and they have an investment in the school, they’re more likely to keep it going.”

Having friends and co-workers working for human rights provided her with the greatest inspiration, Roehl said. “Just doing what we can day to day as individuals will make the biggest difference,” she said.

FINDING CREATIVE WAYS TO PROMOTE CHILD WELFARE

Benjamin Alsdurf, a graduate of Calvin College in Michigan, used his fellowship to volunteer with Community Aid Network Uganda, an organization that promotes educational and developmental projects.

Alsdurf met with community committees to discuss child welfare issues. Together, they explored creative ways to educate people about children’s rights, such as using community theater or discussions at popular drinking establishments.

“It doesn’t take a lot of resources for people to get motivated to try to engage these issues, and so I think the workshops were helpful in getting people to be explicit,” he said. “I provided each committee with some materials about effective educating practices and foundational tools about facilitating this type of learning.”

He acknowledged that 10 weeks is not a lot of time to get things done. “Understanding your limitations is probably the best thing for making your project successful in terms of knowing how it could be sustainable after you leave,” Alsdurf said.

For additional information about the program, see “Program Introduces Ordinary Americans to Human Rights Work.”