Members of Journalists for Human Rights gathered on March 14-15 for a conference on human rights reporting

( Photo: Zahra Bhimani )

Among the skeletal acacia trees, the African sun bakes the bare back of a child walking down the cracked, arid path to collect water for her family. She has been walking for hours, having woken up before the faint glimmer of light appeared in the Ghanaian horizon. Her daily chore takes her as long as a Canadian child spends in the classroom. But does the rest of world know about this glaring injustice? Or about the endless list of human rights abuses that are taking place on a daily basis?

Journalists for Human Rights (JHR), as Canada’s leading international media development organization, seeks to address these pressing issues. JHR, co-founded by executive director Ben Peterson, is the first non-governmental organization of its kind to mobilize the power of the media to spread awareness about human rights, as well as act as a watchdog on the abuse of power.

“People cannot defend their rights until they know what they are,” said Peterson, who was a special guest speaker at this past weekend’s “Train the Trainer” workshop at Carleton.

Based on the innovative ‘reciprocal change’ model of development, Peterson said he believes that informing people about their rights will empower marginalized communities to speak out, thereby creating societal dialogue. Rights awareness is thus the first and most necessary step to ending rights abuses.

It was a trip to Ghana in 2000 to work with Ghana’s Ministry of Justice that propelled the political science graduate from Toronto to realize how poorly educated Ghanaians were about their basic rights, rights enshrined in 1947’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Discrimination against people of different ethnic origin, for example, is rampant in Ghana. A 1997 United Nations report showed one in four Ghanaians felt discriminated against based on their tribal origins.

( Photo: Nana Quainoo )

Together with Quebec native Alexandra Sicotte-Levesque, who at the time was reporting to the United Nations on issues in the neighbouring Ivory Coast, Peterson thus decided to educate people about their rights with the founding of JHR in 2002. What started off as a trip to write reports on the implementation of the UN Convention on Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) instead became a driving force behind inciting social change.

Today JHR’s programs help reach 20 million people across post-conflict countries in Sub-Saharan African countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone. It is currently working with local media organizations to reach 20 million people with human rights related stories on a weekly basis.
JHR also has a presence in North America, where it encourages university and high school students to spread rights awareness within their own communities. In Canada alone, there are 25 chapters at post-secondary institutions, engaging over 20 per cent of Canada’s journalism students in human rights reporting.

“JHR at the university level has the goal of providing tools to the next generation of Canadian leaders to make a difference today,” Peterson said.

The Carleton University chapter of JHR was started in January 2004 by a group of dedicated journalism students. With members coming from a wide range of disciplines, CJHR has been at the helm of many campaigns and events focused on accentuating the power that the media and journalism has.

Most recently, JHR hosted their biggest event of the year – a human rights workshop for 40 participants. Divided into the modules of local human rights issues, human rights reporting and photojournalism, the workshop was jam-packed with activities, reflection, and well-known speakers such as CBC radio producer Bob Carty.
“This workshop allowed for ideas to come together, but ultimately, I learnt that we should start by focusing on local issues in our own backyard, before taking the action plan on a global scale to places like Ghana,” said Natalia Peart, one of the participants.

Carly Pender, vice-president of CJHR, had her own views: “I thought the workshop provided an interactive environment with many group activities designed to raise awareness. Individually we’re not experts, but collectively we are. ”