Every year on December 10th, people and organizations around the world prepare to commemorate Human Rights Day. For some, every day is human rights day, but it’s important to have one day that engages people who aren’t necessarily engaged otherwise in human rights campaigns.
“Human Rights Day is celebrated annually across the world on 10 December. The date was chosen to honor the United Nations General Assembly‘s adoption and proclamation, on 10 December 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the first global enunciation of human rights and one of the first major achievements of the new United Nations. The formal establishment of Human Rights Day occurred at the 317th Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly on 4 December 1950, when the General Assembly declared resolution 423(V), inviting all member states and any other interested organizations to celebrate the day as they saw fit.” – Wikipedia (Follow what the United Nations is doing or by following the hashtag #VoiceCount on Twitter!)
Here are SIX ways the slackavist in you can commemorate Human Rights day straight from your desk:
- Donate online or text $$ to a cause that’s important to you! Click here to find campaigns to donate to today.
- Sign a petition or petitions online at Change.org or Care2.org! Or START a petition for a cause that’s important to you, here’s a list of 9 online petition tools to use for your petition.
- Participate in the Write #4Rights with Amnesty International’s annual letter writing campaign from Dec 5th– Dec 16th!
- Tweet about human rights concerns to bring attention to issues that are important to you! Need ideas for what to tweet? Check out the tweets below or use hashtag #HumanRights to see what others are tweeting about.
- Update your Facebook status about an important issue to you! Similar to tweets, you can add a status bringing attention to a particular cause such as ending gender violence or freeing a prisoner of conscience.
- Write a blog post or v-blog for a cause that’s close to your heart…or just because you care! Need ideas on causes to write about? Check out this Huffington Post Impact blog post about ways to take action and different causes to focus on!
Bonus: Here’s a great post on 10 things to do with kids for Human Rights Day!
What are you doing or have done to commemorate Human Rights Day?