Art & Design for Human Rights

ART WORKS Projects’ mission is to use design and the arts to raise awareness of and educate the public about significant human rights and environmental issues.

ART WORKS provides visual advocacy tools which produce action on human rights crises at the grassroots, media, and policy levels. Conceptualized and created in conjunction with established humanitarian and human rights advocacy organizations, ART WORKS’ art and design exhibitions, books, recordings, films, and other initiatives provide opportunities for large numbers of the general population to engage in ending major human rights violations. via Art Works Projects

On November 8th, Horn of Africa, a multimedia exhibit by ART WORKS Projects will open at George Washington University. You are invited. Here are the details (there's also a panel discussion with John Prendergast & a concert afterwards). Check here to see if the exhibit will be coming to your area.

(photograph by Andrew/Cuba Gallery)

Amnesty International Turns 50!

Happy 50th birthday to Amnesty International today. If you don't belong, you can check here for your country's section.

In other news, Giulia had a medical emergency Thursday (overnight into Friday). She is taking two different medicines with very little fuss & feels much better. This awfully upsetting incident has messed up our schedule though, not only on this blog but in other areas. We'll visit everyone as soon as possible. Thanks! (You can check in with Giulia's human servant on Twitter at @juliethecat)

ciao-meow/the Management

(photograph by D Sharon Pruitt)

Write for Rights - Amnesty International

Two days remain in Amnesty International's Annual Write-a-thon. If you are in the States, click here. If outside, click here to find your country section. The text below is from the resources page; you will find everything you need to know.

"Thank you for joining Write for Rights, the world's largest letter-writing event. You are part of a global initiative that will generate a massive outpouring of letters and cards to protect the human rights of people at risk. We are happy to provide you with these materials to ensure your participation in Write for Rights is a success."

ciao-meow/GG Central

(photograph by Alexandra Grablewski)

The Morning is Full

The morning is full of storm
in the heart of summer.

The clouds travel like white handkerchiefs of
goodbye,
the wind, travelling, waving them in its hands.

Pablo Neruda
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (translation by W.S. Merwin)

Happy birthday to Pablo Neruda from GG Central. Giulia seems to be feeling rather dramatic this morning. She's flung herself on the floor, sighing several times. We're pretty sure this has nothing to do with Pablo Neruda. Off to investigate.

ciao-sigh-meow/GG's editor

Twenty-One Years Later - Tiananmen Square

The 21st anniversary of an outrage. From Amnesty blog. Amnesty International (US section; see page for your country)

Art Changes Lives - Ask Tom Block

"There is within these peoples' souls a tremendous amount of beauty and [conviction] that they can actually make a difference.." - Tom Block, artist & activist

We're gearing up at GG Central for the big festival in our neighborhood. Here are some Tom Block paintings & they have changed lives. (Not just those who bought the paintings, silly!) Here is a press account of his first meeting with one of his subjects.

We're so proud of Tom, yes. He is the producer of this weekend's Human Rights Art Festival sponsored by Amnesty International & also a local member of the Takoma Park-Silver Spring #297 local AIUSA group. Tom has worked long & hard (with many others, to them next week, you know who you are) to bring this off. Human rights activists are no easier to herd than any other group of people. Do not despair about the dark nature of Tom's work; you'll notice the bright color he uses--this is not incidental.

ciao-peace-meow/GG's editor

[images by Tom Block/all rights reserved/used with permission of artist]

A GG Invite: Human Rights Art Festival

GG is rousing from Spring Break. She & her editor are still under-the-weather but invite you to the Human Rights Art Festival in Silver Spring, MD this Friday through Sunday (23-25 April 2010). We will be posting this week about the festival, but consider this your official invitation! Stay tuned. If you can't attend, we'd still love it if you clicked the links & read what it's all about (& see all the exciting sponsors, events in our neighborhood).

Some Giulia fans have asked if she will be at the festival. We have hopes but her recently diagnosed asthma may make this impossible. We'll see. (She hates that answer.) GG's editor would love to meet you, though. Be in touch through e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, or her blog, bricolage (where you can leave a comment).

ciao-meow/GG Central

[image by Tom Block/all rights reserved/used with permission]

The Girl Effect

This first week of December, start a positive chain reaction.

[domino cascade by Nauticashades via wikipedia]

Do You Remember Tiananmen?

Do You Remember Tiananmen?

On a trip to Atlanta in July 2000, GG's editor met a woman who served several years hard labor in a Chinese prison for being near the square during the massacre of students & sympathizers that began on June 3 & continued into the 4th. (She was released about 28 months before we met her at a private dinner party; it had nothing to do with her being Chinese.) Her parents were also arrested; cruelly, they were kept in prison for nearly 3 more years than their daughter. The very week we met, her parents were released & moved to Australia. We asked her if Amnesty International made any difference to prisoners in China. We were wondering if we could tell anyone, from someone who would know, that it really did help--those letters, the campaigns on behalf of prisoners of conscience. Was it worth it? Did it only make those of us on the outside feel better? Did the prisoners know that people were trying to help them?

Her immediate answer: yes yes yes! (She actually said, "with an exclamation point.") She did not receive a letter or card, but she knew those who did. Those notes that slipped in--via sympathetic prison guards--were passed from person to person as a valuable commodity, not a tattered piece of paper. Many came from Amnesty members & groups & say You Are Not Alone. Currently GG's editor's local group is working on a Chinese prisoner case & two prisoners of conscience in Indonesia, as well as sponsoring the Human Rights Painting Project. One of our members is painter Tom Block & it is his project. More on that soon, but please do visit.

When we feel like we cannot stand one more minute of any of this, we remember this courageous & lovely woman who somehow survived--certainly with physical & emotional scars--moved to America, & had already completed an MBA (& had a baby!) by the time we met her. We hope she & her darling little girl, who would be 11-1/2 years old now, are very well & happy.

Here is a fantastic link to FRONTLINE: Do You Remember Tiananmen? It has a time-line, photographs, analysis, videos (which, alas, we cannot watch due to dial-up), & addresses the iconic photograph of the end of that spring in Tiananmen. What became of The Tank Man?

In a packed week that includes a crucial public speech by President Obama in Cairo & the 65th anniversary of D-Day, we cannot look away. China is involved in everything we work on; infuriatingly, the government interferes with people outside its borders, too. As the Chinese government has a problem with so many of us, please understand that sites even as innocent as this one get spammed mightily at times. Therefore, we are publishing this on Monday & not the 4th, which has become the traditional date of memorial. The timeline in the link makes clear that everything certainly did not happen on the 4th of June--but the worst did. Memory refreshment is always a good thing & we certainly forgot quite a bit. We encourage you to visit the site & to visit Amnesty International to see what you might do in a few moments to make a difference.

SPECIAL REQUEST: Please do not forget Aung San Suu Kyi. Her situation becomes more bizarre by the hour & we're terrified that she will be sentenced to serve not only more years, but inside the prison. She has fallen ill & how she can survive that, we don't know. We don't think she can. More on that soon. But if you've a moment, please visit the US Campaign for Burma in the right sidebar. Thanks.

Re: the photographs in the collage: LIFE archives, Mark Avery. These are the most violent images on Giulia Geranium. We are sorry but it is necessary. The 1946 shot of Tianamen Square, in what was then called 'Peking', is by Dmitri Kessel & is also from the LIFE archives.

You can help Aung San Suu Kyi--will you?

We interrupt our illness to plead for a little online advocacy on behalf of Aung San Suu Kyi . Since 1988 we've had a poster of the great Nobel Laureate on our wall at home & at our office. She is an inspiration every single day.

A great injustice is happening again (still); we need not recount it. What you do matters. Please go to the online sites & sign the petitions. Go to Amnesty International & sign whatever is there. To the U.S. Campaign for Burma. Canadians have a stake in this, too, of course as she is an honorary citizen of that wonderful country. There were protests in Canada this week but we've not been able to keep up. In case you've not signed those petitions, here is the link to Canadian Friends of Burma .

We are very tired but felt that with the trial going forward in Rangoon & the outrageous last few weeks, we have to say something. Thank you.

photo via scan of personal copy of Letters from Burma by Aung San Suu Kyi

Incandescence - Week's End

We hope you have a lovely weekend. (First photo credit, click on photo. Second photograph, Kutum, Darfur, Sudan by Susan Burgess-Lent/DPDO/all rights reserved.) The GG blog turns one-year old on Monday. Hope to see you then. Happy May Day.

ciao-meow/GGCM

Never Again: What You Do Matters

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”
— Elie Wiesel

The Days of Remembrance this year are 19-26 April. Holocaust Remembrance Day, this year is tomorrow, Tuesday, 21 April 2009. (See here for explanation of date system & for 5 Things You Don't Know about Anne Frank.) See here for this year's theme (Never Again: What You Do Matters), activities, & reading from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. President Obama will give the annual memorial speech in the Capitol Rotunda on Thursday, 23 April. We will listen closely for his thoughts about Darfur. There is a fascinating exhibit at the USHMM on Nazi Propaganda; you can make a virtual visit if you're not planning to be in DC anytime soon. (photo credit)

Note: Unfortunately we cannot allow comments or back-links to/on this post. We are very sorry but cannot risk the possibility of a recurrence of what happened with the Rwanda post.

Determined in Darfur - Week's End

Determined to survive & thrive. Please visit our dear friends at Darfur Peace & Development Organization. Our friend Susan Burgess-Lent is leaving tonight for Sudan. DPDO is the only Darfuri-led US-based NGO still working in Sudan. They do a stellar job & are the nicest of people. They run schools & a women's center, among many things. More to follow. (women along the road by Susan Burgess-Lent/used with permission/all rights reserved)

a determined ciao-meow! GG/mgmt

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination by J.K. Rowling

More lessons from the past year. Here is a repeat of J.K. Rowling's moving speech at Harvard's commencement this past June (2008). We had to hear from a (nice) stranger that Rowling spoke about Amnesty International in the speech; you'd never have known from the press reports. Read it here. Watch the video, here.

photograph/Harvard University Magazine online

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 60 Years On

Sixty years...and ?

Schedule of events in NYC, elsewhere. Declarations, videos, ideas for celebration, brochures, & other materials to download. Forward freely. materials courtesy of the United Nations

ciao-meow,
GG

Javier Bardem & The Invisibles

Message from GG Central. "Stars" don't take up a lot of our thinking time but...GG's editor admits to being excited about a screening (10 September 2008 in Washington, DC) of the Javier Bardem-produced film, "Invisibles." GG was furious at the lack of an invitation; she was somewhat mollified by the "ghastly oversight explanation." Phew. Now, GG's editor just needs to think about which scarf to wear with her one dress--yikes. (I know! But GG's editor also reads fashion & style magazines...don't judge, dears. Diana Vreeland reminded us that other people have to look at us, after all.)

Here is Anderson Cooper's report for 60 Minutes ("The War Against Women In Congo") & a link to the courageous work of Women for Women (WFW), as well.

Please visit the Enough Project to learn what you can do (more than you think) & to read about the film. Enough has excellent position papers & advocacy tools available for Darfur & Southern Sudan, Chad, Somalia, & northern Uganda. Do what you can--every little bit helps!

Ciao-meow, bisou, baci, darlings!
xoxo, GG's editor

Ten ways to celebrate Labor Day

From Tula Connell writing on the AFL-CIO blog:

Before you head off to the hot dogs and veggie burgers at the backyard barbecue this weekend (because who can afford the gas money to drive anywhere?), take a minute to celebrate Labor Day in a way that honors America’s working women and men.

1. Send a Labor Day e-card. Click here. (See how easy it is to take action?)

2. Help pass the Employee Free Choice Act by signing a petition here.

3. Get set to walk. What better way to mark Sen. John McCain’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Sept. 4 than by talking union-member to union-member about the important issues in this election? Stop by here to see video clips of union members describing why they’ll be walking Sept. 4 and here to read why AFL-CIO President John Sweeney is urging union members to walk Sept. 4. If you’re a union member, sign up to walk here.

4. Read a new report about how unions benefit the environment, workers, business and more. American Rights at Work pulled it together and posted it here.

5. Check out the information and resources available at our Working Families Vote site here. While you’re in election mode, take a few minutes to meet Sen. Barack Obama here and get the real story behind McCain here. Don’t know Sen. Joe Biden? Lots of info on his strong working family record here.

6. Sign up for e-mail action alerts here and get the word out about how Obama supports working families by going here.

7. Keep up with issues critical to everyone who works for a living by signing up for the daily AFL-CIO Now blog news e-mail here.

8. There are a few good employers out there. American Rights at Work has the Labor Day list of employer highlights here.

9. Buy yourself or someone you know a Labor Day treat from The Union Shop Online.™ Stop by the shop anytime.

10. Get all the FAQs on Labor Day here, including basic info, Labor Day history and the union movement’s Labor in the Pulpits program.

Now, go get some barbecue.

----------------------

Tula said it all...GG & her editor add nothing except: have a safe day, laugh, see your family &/or friends; and if you have to work, we will work hard to ensure that, unless you are an emergency worker, you will have a paid holiday next year!

Hurricane Katrina - 29 August 2005

Gulf Coast Hurricane Recovery Stumbles to Third Anniversary

That headline speaks for itself. GG Central will be posting more about the disaster in the coming days. There will not be much new to report on from St. Paul, that's for sure. GG was not yet born when Katrina, then Rita, hit New Orleans & the Gulf Coast; GG's editor remembers all too well.

Dr. King's Dream & The Rising

GG & her editor are very much looking forward to tonight's speech(es) & music. There's a lot of "yes, Bruce will be there...no, he won't" blathering everywhere in the news, online & off. We'd love it, of course, if he could be there. He's tired, people. Here's the word from the official Springsteen site:

"Just to add to what the Obama Campaign stated earlier today, while Bruce is an ardent and dedicated supporter of Senator Obama, he will not be performing at, and, in fact, had never planned to perform, at Invesco Field this Thursday."

So, put on your CDs or fire up your iTunes account (if necessary)...GG is spinning a Bruce CD, even as her editor works (fume) on her behalf...keep your hearts & minds focused on Obama's speech tonight, the one in Philadelphia, & the one that Dr. King delivered 45 years ago today.

Dr. King's speech text.

Much more later.

Ciao-meow,
xoxo, GG

Darfur Olympics: Day Five. Justice for the Darfurian People?

Darfur Olympics...Day Five:

Last month, the International Criminal Court (ICC) requested a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese president Omar al Bashir on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against the people of Darfur.

In today's webcast, at left, Mia talks about the reaction of Darfurian refugees to the ICC genocide charges against President Bashir.

You can also read the reactions of Darfurian refugees to the charges against President Bashir on Mia's blog.

Coming tomorrow: Mia highlights life in the camps for Darfurian women.