[sl/leadership/teen] Burma: A Human Rights Issue That Can't Be Ignored
I first learned about the crisis in Burma last year from the 30-day campaign challenge to rally 50,000 voices to speak out for the Burmese who, in their own country are not allowed to speak out for themselves. If they did they could face serious time in prison. How much? Recently a blogger speaking the truth about the oppression was sentenced 20 years in prison.
After following the campaign closely and spreading the word in my hometown I found that sadly Burma’s issues are unknown by the general public. So I decided that holding a fireside workshop in TSL on the topic would be a great idea.
Participants were given basic information on the crimes being committed in Burma, a general time line of events from the 40’s all the way up to today, and information on major players and their impact on the crisis. This was probably the most challenging part of the entire fireside. Planning was quite frustrating, what would be too much information, what is most important to get across, and how do you go about presenting this much information at once without boring people to death? I eventually came to the conclusion that my best bet would be to include all of the facts needed for basic comprehension.
For the main activity groups of participants were given 10 minutes to research a topic and find a picture that represents it. They would then upload the picture and explain to the group why the picture represented the topic. The groups were given the topics 8-8-88, and human rights. Both groups did an excellent job both defining their topic and finding pictures/making shirts that represented their topic.
Group 2 does their presentation on Human Rights.
As always there were things I learned while planning and running this fireside.
1. My mic hates me so if someone is telling me its not cooperating I need to switch to text instead of waiting to see if it will clear up.
2. Large amounts of information need to be broken up so participants don’t get bored. Finding a more interactive way of presenting the information would also work.
3. Getting frustrated that things I can’t control keep causing problems just creates another problem.
Over all I think that my main goal was reached. People who had never heard of Burma now know it exists, know of the junta and all the despicable crimes they commit everyday.
