Outside of the weekly tabling we do in Commons, Yale Amnesty International consistently holds a number of events every semester by itself as well as in partnership with other organizations at Yale. The following are just some of the events that we have brought to campus.
Fall 2011
Rwanda: Beyond The Deadly Pit (2010, 100 min.)
This is the first non-fiction film ever made by a survivor of genocide. In 1994, Gilbert Ndahayo hid to survive Rwanda’s days of genocide only to return to his childhood home to find it destroyed, his parents killed, and their corpses dumped, along with 153 bodies of his neighbors, in a pit in his back garden where he played as a boy. 13 years later, Ndahayo focuses his camera and his compassion on his home in ruin, behind a convent where his neighbors had sought sanctuary. He records the quiet beauty of survivors, the haunting accounts of the nuns who witnessed the horrors, and a rare confession by one of the men who murdered his parents. Shot in the style of cinema verite, Rwanda: Beyond The Deadly Pit was filmed over the course of three years and devastatingly contemplates the young filmmaker’s drama and his native country’s quest for forgiving and unforgiving the mass murderers. The screening was followed by a discussion with the filmmaker, Gilbert Ndahayo.
Cosponsored by The Council on African Studies; The Schell Center for International Human Rights; The Program on Ethnicity, Race, and Migration; the Yale African Students Organization; and Yale Amnesty International.
Beyond Repair: True Stories of Connecticut’s Flawed Death Penalty System
A Master’s Tea with Anti-Death Penalty Activists Juan Melendez & Vicky Coward
Juan Melendez is a Florida death row exoneree, and Vicky Coward lost her son in a homicide. Both are fighting to abolish the death penalty in Connecticut. This Pierson Master’s Tea offered an opportunity for students and the broader Yale community to hear their personal stories of the impact of a capital punishment system that is in disarray. The Tea also served as a call to action to fight for repeal of Connecticut’s death penalty, and enabled us to gather new supporters and coalition members in the Yale coalition that Yale Amnesty helped to lead, ultimately helping to realize abolition of Connecticut’s death penalty in April 2012. The event was co-Sponsored by Yale Amnesty International and the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty. For more information, visit the Facebook event.
Amnesty International Letterwriting Event
This was the first in a recurring series of Letter-Writing in Blue State Coffee events. Members of Amnesty International came together with members of the Yale and New Haven community to write letters about individual cases of human rights abuses. Letters could help free a prisoner of conscience! People stopped by the community table for 5 minutes in the midst of studying or while grabbing an afternoon coffee.
Spring 2011
Shine a Light for Rights
Our 2011 Bulldog Days Events, this late-night meet-and-greet was hosted by Yale Amnesty International, the Yale ACLU, and the Genocide Action Project. It was a time for fun, easy, late-night advocacy on Old Campus. It also offered savory ethnic snacks, the opportunity to participate in a photo petition, and the takeaway prize of a free glow stick to spread the light of human rights. Check out the photos below from the event.
International Human Rights Film Festival
This film festival was a three-day event featuring five great human rights documentaries. The featured films included No More Tears Sister (Sri Lanka), War Don Don (Sierra Leone), Divided We Fall (USA), Out in the Silence (USA), and Burma VJ (Burma).
