Kitchen Table Activism

Background: Kitchen Table Activism (KTA) is a monthly project of the Rural Organizing Project. Often building on quarterly themes, short actions are described in each KTA. The theory is that basic steps and tasks can lead to powerful collective results as small groups of people gather to complete the same action throughout the state of Oregon.

ROP works to keep the basic tasks easily achievable so that groups with other projects or groups with limited immediate energy can still manage to complete the KTA each month.

November 2006 Activity

Bringing Home the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

WHAT IS THE ACTIVITY? This month’s activity is to award a certificate to a community member(s) whose work strengthens some of the thirty articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).  Over the years, this KTA has been repeated as an annual action because you tell us that this is a fun, easy, and effective way to celebrate and raise awareness of human rights victories and struggles.  This year we are putting out this KTA in November, to give your group enough time to prep for the Dec. 10^th anniversary of the UDHR.

WHY THIS ACTIVITY?  We need to honor human rights work in our communities so that these living reminders of hope and resistance can temper the despair that we have all too many reasons to feel.  We live in a time when our Federal Government sanctions torture.  The occupation in Iraq has resulted in the deaths of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.  Immigrant families are torn apart by deportation and immigrants are criminalized for being economic refugees.  The basic rights outlined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights bring us back to the fundamental rights that all human beings possess and ought to have respected.  Much like ROP’s Democracy Grid, the UDHR can work as a structural framework to connect seemingly distinct issues. 

December 10^th marks the anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).  This annual date offers human dignity groups across Oregon the opportunity to hold up the good in our communities and celebrate important local human rights work.  Every issue we work on is a human rights issue in one form or another and can be identified as a protected right in the UDHR. 

The five categories of human rights outlined in the UDHR are civil human rights, economic human rights, social human rights, cultural human rights and political human rights.  (To see a copy of the UDHR go to www.udhr.org or ask ROP to mail you one.) Civil Human Rights are those such as free speech, peaceful assembly, and freedom from discrimination.  Economic Human Rights include the right to a living wage for your work, the right to be able to feed your family after working, the right to be able to survive if you are not able to work.  Social Human Rights speak to the needs each person has for housing, education, and health care.  Cultural Human Rights include the rights to practice your own culture, your religion of choice, and your language of choice.  Political Human Rights include the right to free elections, the right to a nationality, and the right to free movement in and out of your country. 

STEPS TO COMPLETE THE ACTIVITY:

1. Reach consensus that your group wants to use the UDHR as a vehicle to highlight the human rights work of a community member.

2. Brainstorm ideas of people in your community that would be notable candidates for receiving a certificate of appreciation for their human rights work.  How can giving this award to this person who up some of your group’s values around human rights?  How can it shed light and offer a new framework on a contentious issue of the moment?

3. Enclosed with this packet is a certificate.  Fill out the certificate and decide how you will present it (by mail, in person, at your next monthly meeting, at a local governmental meeting, etc.)

4. Delegate a person or a small team to submit a letter to the editor and/or a press release about the award (samples are attached). 

5. If time permits, discuss how your group can further utilize the UDHR as a framework.  How does your work connect to human rights principles?  How does it fall under the articles of the UDHR?

Previous KTAs are now located in the KTA Archive.