By Maria LaMagna
Arriving on the tails of one of the most devastating tragedies in history, a somber mood set the tone of the seventh annual Northwestern University Conference on Human Rights Thursday night.
About 200 students gathered in Owen L. Coon Forum in Leverone Hall for the kick-off event entitled “Urban Slums: The Shadow of the Humanitarian Generation.” The weekend-long conference will include speakers, panel discussions and hands-on activities for invited participants.
The delegates, who represent 27 different colleges and universities, were selected after an application process, said Julie Kornfeld, NUCHR co-director. The 40 students will attempt to come up with solutions to human rights problems by looking at case studies.
“We’re hoping that after they critically think about how to deal with these problems and format action plans, they’ll be able to use that knowledge to do similar things after the conference, and maybe even use their action plans and petition Congress or ask different funders for money,” said Kornfeld, a SESP junior.
Architect Ann Clark, who has worked in Haiti with Partners in Health, addressed the audience before keynote speaker Katherine Sierra took the lectern. Clark spoke about the need for hospital repair and aid in Port-au-Prince as conference organizers passed around donation boxes.
NU Stands With Haiti, another student group, collaborated with NUCHR to make Thursday’s address a kickoff event for fund raising, Kornfeld said.
“It’s a huge human rights concern these days, so we didn’t want to not address the situation even though it’s not completely related to urban slums,” she said.
Delegate Shelby Fields, a senior from Macalester College, also attended the conference in 2008.
“I’m studying international studies and human rights, so this is kind of right up my alley,” Fields said. “At least with my studies at school, they’re pretty theoretical, so this is a very specific topic that helps to narrow some of the theoretical focus I’ve had to a specific case study.”
Sierra, vice president of sustainable development for The World Bank, began her presentation with an image of Port-au-Prince projected in front of the auditorium.
“Slums are the most vulnerable part of a city, and we know that, but it was really brought to full by the earthquake in Haiti,” she said. “Keep that image in your mind as we go forward because unfortunately I think we’re going to see more of that, not less.”
Throughout the presentation called “Empowering Hope: Cities, Slums, and Human Rights,” Sierra showed a variety of images, including video clips of urban slums around the world.
While there are both environmental and safety concerns present in slums, it is important to remember that some “hardworking and entrepreneurial” individuals live there, she said.
“They can be the most vibrant culturally of any of the people that we encounter,” Sierra said. “When you think of people living in slums, think also of people who have small businesses doing what they can to provide a livelihood for their families.”
Weinberg sophomore Alex Schmittlein attended the keynote address after working in the education committee for NUCHR.
“I thought (Sierra) did a good job of using statistics and images to drive home her message,” he said. “That’s easier to connect to, rather than for me, personally, the economic side of it.”
It is important to view people who live in slums as “assets” who lack basic identity, Sierra said. The World Bank interviewed 60,000 impoverished people to see what they wanted most, according to the speaker. Although they desired clean water, food, electricity and other necessities, Sierra said there was one thing they wanted more.
“The number one thing they wanted was for people to listen to them.”
Source: Daily Northwestern
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