UNA-UK branches and regions took on UDHR60 with enthusiasm and determination, holding a raft of events across the country throughout the declaration’s 60th anniversary year. Here is a flavour:
A coalition of north London branches banded together to host a UDHR60 panel discussion at London Metropolitan University. The coalition pulled together an impressive line-up of speakers, including Tim Hancock of Amnesty International, Professor Philip Leach from London Metropolitan University, Gareth Peirce of solicitors Birnberg Peirce, and Baroness Vivien Stern (pictured below, left-hand photo) of the joint parliamentary committee on human rights. One theme was particularly prominent: have the principles enunciated by the framers of the declaration 60 years ago taken root in our culture in the UK?
London & South-East Region is very thankful to the South African High Commissioner, Her Excellency Dr Lindiwe Mabuza, for allowing the region to host its flagship UDHR60 event at South Africa House. The speakers grappled with a number of issues, among them the human rights situation in North Korea, the meaning of the declaration to women in the DRC and the right to asylum.
UNA Westminster commissioned a special UDHR60 play, ‘How the Universal Declaration was won’. A 20-minute piece written for six actors, it imagines Eleanor Roosevelt and her fellow UDHR architects in 1954, sharing their memories of drafting the declaration and their disappointments about its uneven implementation. The play is interactive, ending with an audience simulation of the historic vote in Paris in 1948 when states brought the declaration into existence. The play is available by e-mail from David Wardrop on info@unawestminster.org.uk. It includes the play itself, a synopsis and director’s notes.
The photograph in the middle, commissioned by the UNA-UK branch in Poole, shows a copy of the declaration hanging in the foyer of Poole Civic Centre.
Members raise the UN flag at Woolwich Town Hall (see photo on the right) with the mayor of Greenwich to mark Human Rights Day 2008.
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