The
Human Rights Training Weekend with Africa Unite was a beautiful three days
spent on an olive farm, far from the city lights. It was so relaxing and
serene, an amazing venue for learning about human rights!
Since
I am already a Human Rights Major, much of the weekend was a review of
introductory courses I’ve taken at UConn. I think the most important aspect I
took from the human rights weekend is the need for community engagement and to
learn from each other’s perspectives and ideas.
I
met and interacted with a lot of South Africans or African Nationals during
this weekend. One of the main components was to learn about human rights
violations in other African countries. My group was the country Zimbabwe. One
thing I learned from those interactions is how I and the other Americans in my
group were trying to plan out everything. Once I realized that not much input
was coming from the non-Americans, I stepped in and asked them what they would
like to see in our group. Only then, did our group collaborate and come up with
a fun presentation on Zimbabwe. We tied for first place, which was a pretty
cool experience. I learned so much about Zimbabwe, it’s history and human
rights violations. The corruption in different African countries is very
prominent. I think what shocked me the most about Zim, is that its’ President,
Robert Mugabe who is 93 years old, and still desires to become president in the
next term, 2018.
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