Acting for Amnesty

Amnesty International is one of the world's largest human rights organisations; campaigning for those whose rights have been abused across the world.

This is only the second year that The Grange has operated an Amnesty International Group, but already news of its work is spreading. Thanks to a committed body of Sixth Form and Fifth Year students, two successful events have already been organised.

The first of these was the ‘Kite for Rights' campaign, which raised awareness of the treatment of women's rights in Afghanistan through the production of kites, which were then sent to our Foreign Secretary, William Hague, to ensure that the issue was not forgotten about at the recent Afghan peace talks in Bonn.

The second was a very successful event based on the ‘Write for Rights' campaign. Between 12.00 and 1.00 students persuaded their peers to support the rights of a range of different people whose rights had been abused; including Fatima Hussein Badi, a woman awaiting execution in the Yemen without fair trial, to the people of the Port Harcourt waterfront dwellings in Nigeria, who are under threat of forced eviction from the government in order to redevelop the area for commercial use. This support came in the form of writing and signing letters to the relevant governing authorities to let them know that such abuses were not going un-noticed.

The group has, in a very short period of time, significantly raised awareness of the issue of human rights abuses around the world, whilst giving the staff and students of the school an opportunity to help make a difference to those less fortunate than ourselves.