Week features human rights

Chapel Hill and Carrboro will celebrate human rights in the next week in an effort to be among a handful of cities worldwide recognized as Human Rights Cities.

Only seven cities now hold this distinction facilitated by the nonprofit People’s Movement for Human Rights Education, but several others hope to be recognized soon.

 “A Human Rights City is a place where people really care about the welfare, security, dignity and equality of other residents,” said Judith Blau, a UNC sociology professor and facilitator of the local initiative.

The steering committee of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Human Rights Initiative, along with UNC students, nonprofit organizations and advocacy groups, planned Human Rights Week.

Pluto Richards, steering committee co-chairman, said educating the community about human rights is the goal of the week’s forums.

Human Rights Week will include discussion panels on living wage, fair trade and health care.

“It is important that we become aware of the basic rights that we all share as human beings because once we are aware, we can go and tell other people,” Richards said.

“We are trying to educate communities to live and integrate these ideas into their daily lives.”

The final day of the celebration falls on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by members of the United Nations on Dec. 10, 1948.

Chapel Hill and Carrboro will try to become two of only a handful of cities worldwide recognized as Human Rights Cities.

“America is a very individualistic society historically, where people have individual careers, educations and families,” Blau said. “In tough times, we begin to realize that we need to have some solidarity.”

Distinction as a Human Rights City would require the declaration of rights’ adoption by Chapel Hill Town Mayor Kevin Foy and Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton, as well as local government efforts to consider the                policy interests of women, workers, children and immigrants.

Both mayors attended a mock constitutional convention held by Blau’s sociology classes last fall. From their discussion they concluded that while the constitution addressed property rights, it lacked important human rights provisions.

This prompted Blau and her students to organize Human Rights Week.

Blau said human rights are of special importance now, as local residents will need to band together to weather the economic recession.

“When we begin to think about the concrete manifestation of a Human Rights City it becomes like an orchestra with many voices, many sounds, and that is what this week will be,” Blau said.



Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.