Amnesty highlights

It is Wednesday afternoon in a Nevejean classroom and the Amnesty CAS group has just started its weekly meeting. “There’s the demonstrations in Hong Kong to cover, the Forgotten War in Yemen to update, the flight from Bolivia to Mexico of Ivo Morales and the release of President Lula in Brazil and we have not talked up the situation in Syria for weeks.”

Someone suggests: “Maybe we should just cancel the round-up of human rights issues this week and focus on the current campaigns looking forward to working with refugees at Christmas, the Amnesty Write for Rights campaign and raising money by the sale of ribbons for World Aids Day on 1st December to help the children, as in the past seven years, in the orphanage in Mohau in Pretoria in South Africa.” Phew!

Amnesty International has always had a fulfilling role in the lives of students and staff alike for the last thirty years in BSB. Its activities during the year enable our students to connect with our guidelines of ‘respect for the wider community’ through the sheer variety of campaigns during the year. The calendar can be unchanging: International Women’s Day in March; Anti-Discrimination concert in late March; attendance at the annual UK Amnesty AGM in April; Anti-Homophobia Day in May; World Refugee Day in June. The events and the campaigns have a seasonal flow and a deep influence in the life and culture of the Secondary School but it is what our students think of Amnesty which is so important. Why do they choose Amnesty? For many of our students there is the recognition that we live in a complicated world. BSB students realise that we are all globally connected: young people protesting in Hong Kong; the students here in Belgium marching on Fridays for a Future against the climate crisis; the distressing scenes from Syria which have been playing out for the last eight years. Students have been inspired by the courage of Greta Thunberg and see that they too can be a force for change in the world. But time and time again they realise they are connected and wish to fight on behalf of those who do not have their rights.

Amnesty in the past thirty years has too many people to thank but just a few to mention: Janet Akers, who helped to set up the Amnesty tuck shop that has raised over €100,000 for disaster zones and good causes throughout the world; to those many, many students who have been stalwart performers in our annual concerts; to the late Sir Natan Ramet, who visited us to tell of his experiences of Auschwitz and show his prison number branded into his wrist; to Abdulrahman and many other refugees who have shared their traumas and their lives with many BSB audiences; and, finally, to those who felt compelled to write a letter to a prisoner of conscience at Christmas, we salute you.