Manuela human rights weekend

When we arrived on the farm, we would be spending the weekend for the Human Rights workshop, I did not expect to be on such a beautiful farm; the housing we were provided with was amazing. We were given so much food during each meal and we got dessert after every lunch and dinner and I can’t forget about the tea breaks we received between breakfast and lunch.

The first night we had introductions of everyone participating during the weekend; it was really cool hearing all the different places people were coming from in Africa. A comment that was made, by one of the participants, really got me thinking. He thanked Africa Unite for being able to bring the United States to him because he will never be able to travel there. To him the UConn students were the closest thing he had to the U.S. Our stories would allow him to get a “real” sense of what the U.S is really about; his thoughts can become more than what he sees in movies and on TV. (A lot of the times when I have met people here they expect every American to be like the people they see in movies but the reality is movies are not an accurate representation of what the US actually consist of). Back to human rights weekend- for the activities that we did I expected to talk more as a group about our stories/ experiences and what the Human rights issues happening our countries. These things were briefly discussed but I was hoping it would have been a bigger part of our weekend. With that said the activities we did have were great and allowed me to learn about HR. I thought I knew a lot about this topic because I guess its obvious what our basic rights should be but as the activities went on I was disappointed in myself in how little I actually knew.

One of the activities presented to us was to get in groups and pick an African country to present to the United Nations in order for them to give money to your cause. My group chose Zimbabwe, when we presented our country I was not to sure how the presentation would turn out because we did not have too much time to prepare. When all the other countries presented I learned a lot about issues I did not know were happening in those countries. Unfortunately it had been a very long day that I started dosing off by the end of the presentations. When it finally came to the end it was time for the UN to make a decision of the winners I was so shocked and excited when I heard Zimbabwe was the winner.

           

I met so many great people during this weekend; it was wonderful getting to know people from different countries in Africa and to find out what organizations they take part in. On Saturday night there was a gathering in one of the houses. I had some amazing conversations with people and as a group we all started to dance to African music. Overall it was a tiring weekend but definitely worthwhile!

Manuela receiving her human rights training certificate at the conclusion of the weekend