my thought bubble

One Day for Human Rights

For a couple of years I have been working for the Human Rights Action Center (HRAC), a non-profit organization involved in ....doh! human rights work.

This year, on December 10, is the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , written by Eleanor Roosevelt. Only 5% of the planet's population have read this document, and most of the people that have heard of human rights, don't know them. That is the reason why we need to promote this document, and make everybody aware of its existence.

The HRAC started a campaign for this, the goal being to publish the UDHR in everybody's passports. We have a petition online, and there are volunteers going on campuses and getting everybody to sign it on paper. If we gather a big amount of signatures, then Jack Healey , the HRAC director, will have the means to get the US government to publish it. 

We will also need people to write their senators, governers, country officials, send them emails requiring to print the UDHR in passports. We are still working on this part, getting a sample letter ready and all.

OneDayforHumanRights.com   (don't click on it yet, there's nothing there! :) )

I got the idea for a blog from Blog Action Day : it is a brilliant idea, and it is pretty incredible the outcome that they had! People like to help other people, and it's so easy to do so sometimes. Therefore, my blog will be the means for people to do something for human rights.

How it'll work:  we make a blog that will plead to bloggers to blog about the UDHR on December 10, and backlink to us and the petition.

The goal: to get as many people to sign the petition, sent the letters and possibly donate to HRAC.

Depending on the outcome, Jack can take the petition to government officials and start pushing the UDHR publication in passports.

What I need help with is more than anything promoting the blog and for people to get involved, but before that I need to get it going. I will set it up tonight and tomorrow, and then implement the design and content. 

I have only implemented one WP blog before, so it is not my best strength.  I can do designs, but can't adapt it to WP. I am not even sure on how to set up ads on there (would like to link to Blog Action Day, HRAC, US Campaign for Burma). So any advice would be more than welcome! On anything...if you have sugestions on how i could improve it, etc! Hopefully my server will be able to handle this if it will be successful. :)

The bottom line is that I need all the help I can get. This, however, is a non-profit project - no money involved whatsoever. I don't want to get payed for it, don't want to put payed ads on the blog, and don't want people to ask me for money for their help. This is about way more than money! If you can't figure out why, please don't offer your help. :)

In case you are interested to help me, with WP advice, coding, implementation...anything, please let me know:

email:  anca@visualdexterity.com

skype: visualdexterity

twitter: http://twitter.com/anca_foster

Also, We Design Change is gonna back me up, and you are more than welcome to register there and contribute. That is another awesome idea, coming from Alex: twitter.com/alexlinebrink   and we'll probably have contests going, having you create art for the universal declaration of human rights. we're still processing that part. hehe!

Looking forward to hearing from you!

"All that is needed for evil to succeed, is that decent human beings do nothing" - Edmund Burke