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Christmas Carolling, Human Rights Day and Winter Social 2013!

Hello hello, sorry this is late!

I know this a very busy time for everyone so I’ll keep it brief! Remember – there will be no meeting on Tuesday.

Last week of Women’s Rights

I think last week’s film was a great choice, and thanks to Cate who pointed out that there are follow-up actions to take on the website. So if you are taking a revision break, you can sign a petition to world leaders demanding an end to ‘gendercide’ in India.

December’s Fundraiser: Carol Singing!

This is happening TOMORROW (Monday) so hopefully if you wanted to take part you are in the planning group. If not, then you can still come along! We are meeting outside Hillhead Subway station at 12noon and I will have song sheets; don’t think we actually expected you to remember all the verses to Good King Wenceslas.

Human Rights Day/Winter Social!

On Tuesday we are having a social instead of a meeting and hope to see as many of you as possible. Join the event if you are coming and if you are not sure then don’t worry, we have reserved extra seating to cover ‘maybes’. If you have exams, let this be your study break! We will be gathering from 6pm onward and you can pop along for as long or as short a time as you want.

 

For those of you with exams, GOOD LUCK !!

Ruth

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Tuesday 3rd December: Women’s Rights Film Screening, Carol Singing and Human Rights Day Social

Good Tidings GU Amnesty,

December is upon us and we are nearing the end of term and, dare I say it, the beginning of exams. So our next meeting will be our last for this year, but we also have our end of term social, and fundraiser– read on for all the details.

Last week we expressed our outrage at Coca-Cola’s failure to acknowledge human rights abuses in Russia: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.631682286875487.1073741835.458988730811511&type=1

We then took part in the Reclaim the Night March as part of the 16 days of action to end violence against women: http://www.guamnesty.org.uk/2013/11/photos-from-reclaim-the-night-march-2013/

Next meeting: Film screening in St. Andrew’s Building, Room 213 5pm

We are back in the St. Andrew’s Building (Woodlands) for our final meeting and round-up of our campaigns of the semester. We have chosen a film which is related to our women’s rights theme for November, and this will look at ‘gendercide’. This term has come about following the recognition of the fact that many newborn girls are killed simply because they are girls. The film looks at this across different countries speaking to families who have both killed their own daughters and had their daughters killed.

For more information on the content of the film, please email us at mail@guamnesty.org.uk but here’s the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISme5-9orR0

Map for St. Andrew’s Building: http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_26876_en.pdf

December’s Fundraiser: Carol Singing!

Our Fundraising Officer, Maisie, was collecting the contact details for anyone wanting to join the carol singing group for our final fundraiser of  the year. We have done this in previous years and it has been a huge success and great fun! We sang outside Hillhead subway for just over an hour and managed to raise quite a bit of money before heading for a well-earned hot chocolate, so I think this would be the plan for this year.

If you weren’t at the meeting on Tuesday and want to get involved, here’s the event page. The general feeling was to do it before the 10th December but I don’t think the date is absolutely fixed so we can finalise this on Tuesday.

10th December – Human Rights Day and End of Term Social!

Join the event if you are coming/thinking of coming so that we can get an idea of numbers. We are looking to have it in a pub but as always there will be no emphasis on drinking or staying out late. If you are more interested in human rights and less interested in socialising, there will be still be an action to do. Amnesty usually have a Christmas card appeal where we send Christmas cards to people who are in prison, to the families of those who have ‘gone missing’, to people who are awaiting investigations into human rights abuses that have taken place but fail to be acknowledged and others too, so this is something we feel is important to do.

So please come along, even if you are only free for an hour or so and then I can also wish you a Happy Christmas in person 😀

Other Events

2nd December – 6th December: Medics Against Violence Campaign Week – Ask Listen &Respect Me

Event page for the campaign week with relevant news articles and reposts being posted each day.

Event page for the film screening and discussion (Wednesday 4th December, 7pm, room tbc).

‘Medics against Violence are working alongside Police Scotland, and the Violence Reduction Unit and are campaigning to raise awareness of sexual violence. Sexual violence is a major problem with huge numbers of incidents involving both male and female victims each year.’

‘We will also be holding a film & discussion night, led by Graham Goulden, Chief Inspector and National Anti-Violence Campaign Coordinator at the Violence Reduction Unit, Glasgow.
It will be at 7.00pm, Boyd Orr Building (Room TBC) – Wednesday 4th December.’

9th December: MEDSIN Campaign Poster Design Evening 7pm

MEDSIN are holding this event as a follow-up to the talk they had on human trafficking. As this is our chosen campaign for next semester, this may be of interest to many of you and we will be working with both MEDSIN and STOP THE TRAFFIK Glasgow next semester for our campaign. This session will focus on a poster campaign – here’s the event page for more information.

Happy 1st December and let the countdown begin!

Ruth

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Tuesday 26th November: Coca-Cola’s Shame, Reclaim the Night March, Human Rights Day and Other Events!


Hey lovely people,

Congratulations everyone on such a good effort for the Day of Silence and Jamnesty! We managed to get the photo action posters up and you should be able to see them in the QMU, SRC, GUU and GUSA office soon, if not already. Also, the Thunderclap was a success! (Although it did go off a little later than we originally planned.) And finally, we managed to get at least 88 people to Jamnesty, raising over £300!

I have to say that Jamnesty has been rated as one of GU Amnesty’s best events ever, and I completely agree. It was such a good night and our performers were all fantastic. You can see the photos on our website where you can also find the links to Yew, Chrissy Barnacle and Flying Penguins’ pages so that you can listen again and download their music.

Next meeting: Exposing Coca-Cola and Reclaim the Night March, 6.30pm

You may have heard that Coca-Cola have refused to speak out against the discrimination and violence that is being directed at LGBT people in Russia. Here is their pretty pathetic statement.

Our plan is to create a banner/poster that will highlight Coca-Cola’s failure to act and plan how to raise awareness on campus.

There are a few other things that we need to discuss, including our final social (see below) and fundraiser of the semester, and a Secret Policeman’s Ball update but it’s going to be a fairly short meeting (30 mins planning and discussion, 30 mins campaign action) because this is happening at 6/6.30pm:

(A message from ex-committee member, Cat, about the Reclaim the Night March)

“Hello everyone! Before I go on this post, I’d just like to congratulate all of you that took part in the day of Silence on Wednesday. It was absolutely lovely to see all of your photos and I hope you raised plenty of money!

November is drawing to a close, which means we are about to enter the 16 Days of Action for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. There are an awful lot of activities going in Glasgow in order to raise awareness about this, so please forgive me for not linking to them all.

I would like to make you aware of this one, though. The Rape Crisis group will be holding their annual Reclaim the Night March, which this year will take place on Tuesday 26th October.

The march will start at 18:30 outside the main entrance of the Botanic Gardens (opposite Oran Mor), and will go down Byres Road, up University Avenue, then down Gibson St to the STUC on Woodlands Road- where there will be hot drinks, food, speeches and music. You can start assembling outside the Botanic Gardens from 18:00.

In the years I was with the group, we got quite a few people to attend. So I really hope I’ll see some of you there!

Once again, great work with the campaigns so far this year, and I’m looking forward to the SPB already!

So anyone who wants to come along, we will be joining the march as GU Amnesty. We will have an Amnesty banner and if you want to bring jars with tealights, that is quite often what people do. We will go together, straight from the meeting.

Tuesday 3rd December: Documentary Screening for Women’s Rights

Oh dear, I can’t believe we’re planning for things in December. That’s scary.

For our last official meeting, we have a documentary film in mind related to women’s rights so thought this would be a good way to finish our women’s rights events. We will discuss this at the meeting and are open to more suggestions.

Tuesday 10th December: Human Rights Day!

Our favourite day of the year, and it’s on a Tuesday 🙂

As this is during our exam period, we were not planning on having an actual meeting but we really cannot ignore such an important date in our calendar. So, we hoped to make this our end of term social, which we are going to discuss at the next meeting so we can get an idea of what folk might want to do.

Other Events

Sunday 1st December: Pridepop! (World Aids Day)

W O R L D A I D S D A Y

World AIDS Day is celebrated on 1 December every year and is an international day to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS. It is an opportunity for us as human beings to unite and support each other in our fight against HIV.

P R I D E P O P

PRIDEPOP is a night of love, acceptance and respect. It is a night of intolerance towards prejudice and hate. The party itself is a musical and visual drinking system that combines music, dancing and alcohol. PRIDEPOP could mean anything. But for Andrew and Carlo it is a celebration of equality. It is a night where we come together regardless of our HIV status to penetrate the night with our pride in who we are and what we can achieve when we treat everyone as equal.

The event is being held at the Berkeley Suite from 8pm on Sunday 1 December. 

2nd December – 6th December: Medics Against Violence Campaign Week – Ask Listen & Respect Me

Event page for the campaign week with relevant news articles and reposts being posted each day.

Event page for the film screening and discussion (Wednesday 4th December, 7pm, room tbc).

‘Medics against Violence are working alongside Police Scotland, and the Violence Reduction Unit and are campaigning to raise awareness of sexual violence. Sexual violence is a major problem with huge numbers of incidents involving both male and female victims each year.

This December we will be holding a ‘Campaign Week’ 2nd-6th December. We want to get more people talking about this serious topic and to learn more about the early warnings that you may see. We want everyone to be safe this Christmas, and to know who to turn to if you see something or if something happens to you.

Each day we will be emailing and posting articles and news reports relating to the campaign.

We will be holding stalls at lunchtime throughout the week where you can get more information about the campaign, donate to the campaign and buy wristbands.

We will also be holding a film & discussion night, led by Graham Goulden, Chief Inspector and National Anti-Violence Campaign Coordinator at the Violence Reduction Unit, Glasgow.
The event page for this can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1410819055821606

It will be at 7.00pm, Boyd Orr Building (Room TBC) – Wednesday 4th December.’

It may nearly be the end of this semester, but there is still a lot going on! Remember to bring warm clothes on Tuesday if you are marching with us.

Ruth

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Tuesday 19th November: Guest Speaker from the Scottish Transgender Alliance, Day of Silence and Jamnesty!


Hey everyone,

The highlight of our semester is here! I hope you are all as excited as I am for Jamnesty next Wednesday! Please, please remember to get tickets from me on Tuesday if you haven’t already and bring back money/spares. Also remember your t-shirts for decorating! See below for all the details.

In other news – Friday was the deadline for our SPB poster competition so if you really wanted to enter but didn’t quite manage to draft one up then you can still send one over the weekend if you want. Just email it to spb@guamnesty.org.uk

Next meeting: QMU Committee Room 1, 5pm

Presentation from Nathan Gale, Scottish Transgender Alliance Development Officer

Due to time constraints we are aiming to start at 5pm so please try and arrive on time.

Our speaker Nathan Gale is coming along to talk to us about the work of the Scottish Transgender Alliance and the Equality Network. This talk is coming at a crucial time, in the midst of the new equal marriage bill making its way through the Scottish Parliament and the day before the Transgender Day of Remembrance and I am sure that Nathan will spend some time talking about both of these. The presentation will be quite informal and Nathan says that he is happy to answer any questions afterwards. I think this will be a brilliant opportunity to discuss effective campaigning strategies as demonstrated by the huge campaigning efforts for marriage equality.

After the discussion, we will jump straight to making our posters and t-shirts for our Day of Silence. Please remember to bring you own t-shirts for decorating! If you don’t have any spare, don’t worry, we will also have materials to hopefully make badges and material signs to pin on.

Our Publicity Officer, Nikola, is going to discuss how we can use Facebook and Twitter to promote the event ourselves and detail our plans for a publicity launch on the day. Most of this will involve using Thunderclap, which is a method of mass simultaneous posting on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Sign up to it and add the message you want to appear on your wall. Once you have added your message, this will be posted automatically for all of us at the same time – Wednesday 20th at 12 noon. How cool is that! Here’s the link. We need 100 people to sign up so get your friends to add their names as well.

Wednesday 20th November: Day of Silence and Jamnesty!

This is a very important day for lots of reason. It is the Transgender Day of Remembrance, the day of the first vote on the equal marriage bill at the Scottish Parliament, and of course our Day of Silence and Love is a Human Right Jamnesty.

Our Day of Silence is about solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community and recognition of the silencing effect that bullying, discrimination and persecution has on people who identify as LGBTQ+. We will be promoting this solidarity action with the t-shirts that we are decorating at the meeting on Tuesday and putting up the posters that we will have completed around campus. We will also be launching a Facebook publicity campaign using Thunderclap (as mentioned above). Make sure you sign up to it!

Jamnesty tickets are selling quickly so please don’t forget to bring the right amount of money to get all the tickets you need on Tuesday. I will not be giving away any more tickets unless they are paid for so make sure you know how many you need and get friends to give you the money. Of course there will be some tickets on the door so if you/your friends are not 100% sure if you can make it then you will still be able to come. Tickets on the door are £4.

The Equality Network has organised an equal marriage rally to take place outside the Scottish Parliament from 12.30pm till 2pm ahead of the vote on the marriage equality bill. If you are free during the day and want to head to Edinburgh to take part, here are the details.

Thursday 21st November: Positive Action in Housing Food Bank Proposal

STAR (Student Action for Refugees) are holding a meeting at 12noon in the Fraser Building to discuss setting up a food bank for the charity Positive Action in Housing. Unfortunately their website seems to be down at the moment but here is their Facebook page. This is a charity whose work includes helping asylum seekers and refugees who are experiencing destitution and the food bank would help to provide the much needed aid for those who have been made homeless during the asylum process. They are one of very few places that can help destitute asylum seekers as they provide an emergency fund and shelter.

Please feel free go along if you are interested in helping to formulate plans for the food bank on campus.

Have a great weekend and see you on Tuesday!

Ruth

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Tuesday 12th November: Our Right to Education, Write for Rights and FGM

Hi everyone,

I know this is the stressy essay time of year but hang in there, you’ll make it! Also, we have Jamnesty to look forward to so remember to get your tickets on Tuesday and bring back money/spare tickets if you have taken any away to sell.

Next meeting: Right to Education, Write for Rights and FGM

On Tuesday Debbie is going to talk to us about our right to education. We are focusing on this as part of the ‘Right to Education Week’ which was established to raise awareness of the many Palestinians who are being denied access to education in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

After this discussion, we will be looking at the Write for Rights campaign, which AIUK launched earlier this month. There are 13 cases that Amnesty are focusing on and asking us to get involved with. Some of these are specific to women’s rights, our current campaign, and therefore we can focus on these.

The final part of our meeting will be on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Jana will take this part of the meeting as she has studied this as part of her course. We deliberately decided to make this last so that anyone who thinks that this will upset them and does not want to hear about it can leave earlier. This presentation has been designed to be the most informative but least distressing and Jana will give an introduction to what she will cover so that you can decide whether or not you want to stay.

Tuesday 19th November: Guest Speaker – Scottish Transgender Alliance

A reminder that Nathan Gale from the Scottish Transgender Alliance (part of the Equality Network) will be coming to talk to us, so we are really looking forward to hearing from him. We will also take part in their postcard campaign and discuss how to include this at Jamnesty.

Wednesday 20th November: Day of Silence and Jamnesty!

Day of Silence – All day on campus/at home/in your bed/at work/wherever you are in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community

Thanks to Debbie and Alex who visited the SRC drop-in, the SRC are going to publicise our Day of Silence via social media and try to get it in the next SRC mailing if that comes out beforehand.

We thought of buying white t-shirts so that we can decorate them with our GU Amnesty stamp and solidarity messages. Jana has looked into these and the cheapest are £4.50 ethical and fair-trade so we can discuss whether or not to go for these.

Jamnesty: Halt 2, Woodlands Road, doors open 7:30pm, tickets £3/£4 on the door

Of course we have Jamnesty in the evening, which we are all super excited for! Please remember to get your tickets in advance as they are selling fast. You can get tickets at the meetings, and you can take tickets away for friends that you know are coming. You don’t need to pay for these at the time, I’ll make a note of who is taking away tickets and can collect money the week after.

Now get back to that coursework you’re supposed to be doing,

Ruth

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Meeting on Tuesday 5th November: Women’s Rights and Upcoming Events!

BOO!!

Happy Hallowe’en everyone.

This one’s early because it is indeed the Student Conference this weekend and then the next time we meet it will be November! Talk about scary.

If you missed our meeting this week, Dominyka has written the blog, so check it out. I can now report that we have photos from the GUU, SRC and GUSA to add to our LGBT photo action. You can find them all on our website thanks to our Website Manager Rob who does a lot of hard work with that camera.

Next meeting: Tuesday 5th November, Committee Room 1, QMU

We are moving onto our next campaign – women’s rights with a focus on India. Dom is putting together a presentation that looks at the recent gang rape case in India and the subsequent changes in law with regards to reinstating the death penalty for certain forms of sexual violence. However, it has been largely overlooked that there are certain forms of rape that are still considered legal. This meeting will be a good opportunity to discuss what really ought to have been changed in India in terms of legal protections for women.

The first plenary at the Student Conference is ‘Women in Afghanistan – in the news for the wrong reasons’. Those of us who are attending will hopefully have lots to talk about after listening to the various speakers. This was in fact Amnesty UK’s October campaign for student groups, so we will cover this on Tuesday as well.

We are hoping to end the meeting at 6pm for mobdro free download those of you who have plans for bonfire night. If you don’t have plans and wish you did, you can join those of us who are heading to Glasgow Green after the meeting for the fireworks. Remember warm clothes!

Film Event: Wednesday 6th November, 12-2pm 217A Gillmorehill Centre

Screen Seminars at Glasgow – Women making documentaries in the Arab world

One of our members pointed this very well timed event taking place next Wednesday, right after the beginning of our women’s rights campaign. And it’s on campus, even better.

‘Filmmaking in the Middle East is often a matter of idealism and activism, especially in the case of women documentary makers. In spite of harsh censorship, conservative morals and a lack of investment, women have found ways of subtly negotiating dissidence in their films, something that is coming to light very clearly since the ‘Arab Revolutions’. In this talk I will introduce the aesthetic and ethic practices by the very first women making documentaries in the Middle East.

‘A historical overview of the struggles by women making documentaries will be supported by images and clips taken from documentaries by the pioneering women of Arab documentary making, e.g. Jocelyne Saab (Lebanon), Ateyyat El Abnoudy (Egypt), Selma Baccar (Tunisia) and Assia Djebar (Algeria).’

Tuesday 19th November: Guest Speaker – Scottish Transgender Alliance

I know we had our last meeting on LGBT rights this week but there is actually still more to come, yay! Nathan Gale from the Scottish Transgender Alliance (part of the Equality Network) will be coming to talk to us and we can take part in their postcard campaign. We are delighted that he can make it and after that we will have achieved everything that members suggested we do in terms of events for LGBT rights this semester. So that’s something to celebrate!

Wednesday 20th November: Day of Silence and Jamnesty!

Day of Silence – All day on campus/at home/in your bed/at work/wherever you are in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community

Jamnesty: Halt 2, Woodlands Road, doors open 7.30pm, tickets £3/£4 on the door

We have begun looking into t-shirts for our Day of Silence and Maisie is emailing Mobdro Online TV the SRC to make sure that a message is sent to every student telling them about our plans. We thought of buying white t-shirts so that we can decorate them with our GU Amnesty stamp and solidarity messages. We’ll let you know next week how much this will be and see if you want to go ahead with ordering the t-shirts. Whatever we decide, we need something visible for those taking the pledge to be silent and those who are supporting – everyone is welcome to take part so encourage friends outwith the society to join in too.

Ali has been busy finding the best deals for printing the LGBT campaign photos for decorating the Halt 2 and also for creating a poster collage. We are hoping to have big posters in the QMU, GUU and SRC to publicise our solidarity action on that day.

Of course we have Jamnesty in the evening, which we are all super excited for! Please remember to get your tickets in advance as we are almost through our first batch of 30. You can get tickets at the meetings, and you can take tickets away for friends that you know are coming. You don’t need to pay for these at the time, I’ll make a note of who is taking away tickets and can collect money the week after.

Spook to you soon,

Ruth

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Meeting on Tuesday 29th October and our Pub Quiz Today (Sunday)!


Hi everyone,

Welcome to our new members! It’s lovely to still have people joining the society. If you missed the meeting, you can read Ali’s blog on what happened.

I hope you are all remembering our PUB QUIZ TODAY!! Looking forward to seeing you then! We will be starting at 7.30pm in Jim’s Bar, QMU and those of you who are bringing home-baking, thank you in advance, we will add them to the stall with our tote bags.

Conflict-Free Campus Initiative

If you didn’t make this meeting (2 weeks ago), you can read the blog to see what this is all about. Some people who were there said that they would ask certain lecturers if they would support the campaign – please do this is you haven’t already. I will also remind folk on Tuesday!

Next meeting – Tuesday 29th 5pm, QMU

We have been unsuccessful in finding another meeting room for Tuesday so will still be in Committee Room 1.

Unfortunately the Equality Network and Scottish Transgender Alliance do not have anyone who can come and talk to us on Tuesday, but there is a small chance of getting a speaker towards the end of term leaving us with the opportunity to show a recent documentary featuring Stephen Fry who has travelled to various countries where the gay community face persecution, violence and potentially the death penalty.

As this is officially our final LGBT rights meeting, we were hoping to finish with a quick letter writing action to the International Olympic Committee to send with our photos.

Debbie will be bringing along our previous Secret Policeman’s Ball posters so that we can think about the design for this year, and for those of you who want to enter the competition, this is an opportunity to get started!

November Campaign – Women’s Rights with a focus on India

For those of you who have just joined us, we voted this as our 2nd campaign of the year. At Tuesday’s meeting we will have a discussion about what particular topics to cover in our meetings in November and possible campaign actions we want to do.

Day of Silence

Wednesday 20th November – Day of Silence

‘The National Day of Silence is a day of action in which students across the country vow to take a form of silence to call attention to the silencing effect of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in schools.’

Although the date for this is in April and focuses on schools in the USA, we thought this was a brilliant solidarity action and even better when we can end our Day of Silence with our Jamnesty gig.  We will invite the LGBTQ+ Society to take part with us and anyone else who wants to join in is welcome to, so spread the word!

Love is a Human Right Jamnesty

Wednesday 20th November, The Halt 2 (Woodlands Road), 7.30pm

Well the banners are looking amazing! Thank you to everyone last week who helped make them J Ali is printing off all of our LGBT campaign photos as well so that we can stick these up all over the venue.

We are going to start selling tickets for this event because the Halt 2 need to know numbers in advance in order to organise staffing for the night. For this reason we decided to make tickets £3 in advance and £4 on the door- so remember to get yours on Sunday at the Pub Quiz, or at our next meeting.

See you later on!

Ruth

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Tuesday 22nd October: LGBT Rights with Pizza and a Trip to The Arches

Hey everyone,

We are back in Committee Room 1 in the QMU on Tuesday at 5pm.

Read the blog of what happened in last week’s meeting on our conflict minerals campaign. If you missed this then you can still take action in writing to David Newall – all of the details are in the presentation which is now on our website.

Attached is a list of events happening at the CCA which are all related to human rights and some of our chosen campaigns. Scroll down to see what’s coming up.

Student Conference

We have filled our places for the London Student Conference in November BUT are on stand-by for an update of spare places that may be passed on to larger groups like ours. If you wanted to come but didn’t book your place, then let us know and there is a chance that you can still come with us! More information on the conference itself can be found here.

Next meeting

We are continuing our LGBT photo campaign on Tuesday as well as starting our banners and posters for our ‘Love is a Human Right’ Jamnesty gig on Wednesday 20th November. Ali and Dom and are going to take the meeting giving a short presentation on the persecution of the LGBT community in Russia as is the focus of our current campaign.

After the meeting, we are heading to see ‘Stef Smith: Cured’ at The Arches 7.30pm. You can buy your ticket in advance from here but there is an additional £1.50 charge, otherwise you can hopefully get one on the door.  During the meeting we will organise some pizzas for those who want or you can head early and get food from somewhere and meet us at The Arches, it is entirely up to you. If you’re sticking with us though, we’ll be leaving at 6.45pm to get the subway into town.

Tuesday 29th – Guest speakers

Our campaigns officer Dom is STILL working very hard to get someone from Equality Network/the Scottish Transgender Alliance/Patrick Harvie MSP (or all of them!) to come and talk to us about LGBT rights and UK based campaigns.  We’ll keep you posted, but fingers crossed.

Pub Quiz THIS SUNDAY

Jana and Duncan have been writing the rounds, and if anyone wants to bring home-baking for the cake stall then that would be lovely. We’ll also have our tote bags that members worked hard to make a couple of weeks ago, so come along on Sunday and bring friends. We are making it £3 entry per person, of which £2 will go to us and £1 will be added to the winning pot.

‘Love is a Human Right’ Jamnesty

We have had a date and venue change for our fundraiser gig and that has been due to capacity issues. We are now having it at The Halt 2 on Woodlands Road on Wednesday 20th November. This venue is a much better size and still has a stage area for performers as well as a separate bar.

See you Tuesday in the QMU!

Ruth

Our promotional partner, the CCA, has put together a list of relevant events happening from now till December:

Download Upcoming-Events-at-the-CCA-Sauchiehall-Street.doc (DOC, 33KB)

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Glasgow University’s Conflict-Free Campus Initiative (CFCI)

At our meeting on Tuesday 15th October we looked at our conflict minerals campaign that we ran last year, and are continuing this year. ‘Conflict minerals’, namely Gold, Tin, Tantalum and Tungsten, form the direct the link between the technologies that we use every day, including mobile phones, laptops, and cameras, and one of the worst conflicts in the world right now. Our electronic goods need these minerals to function but at the moment they come with the cost of human lives.

The CFCI is a global student movement that takes a consumer-directed approach to demanding an end to this conflict. It focuses on the Democratic Republic of Congo where some of the most grave human rights abuses are taking place throughout the process of mineral extraction under the control of armed rebel groups. These armed groups operate by locating a mineral rich area, forcing the people off the land to build a mine and setting up boundaries to control access in and out, as well as fighting for control of pre-existing mines. Once control of a mine has been established, the local people can be forced to work in the mines for as little as $2 a day or nothing at all. These armed rebels often set such high taxes for anyone wanting to leave the mining area that it prevents people from escaping and effectively keeps them hostage.

This conflict has been ongoing for over two decades, during which time over 6 million people have been killed, hundreds of thousands of women have been raped, children have been recruited as child soldiers as well as being forced to work in the mines and local communities have been used as slave labour and terrorised by armed groups who are making an estimated $144 million each year in the trade of conflict minerals.

As part of Enough Project’s ‘Raise Hope for Congo’ campaign, the CFCI aims are to raise awareness of these atrocities on campus and demand that our universities amend their investment and procurement policies to prioritise companies that are taking steps towards a ‘trace-audit-certify’ system to ensure that the minerals used to make their electronic goods are not coming from conflict areas.

You can look through the presentation to see what we discussed and watch friends of the Congo’s documentary ‘Crisis in the Congo: Uncovering the Truth’ which we showed at the meeting.

Last year we got the SRC to pass a motion, made our own campaign video for a Conflict-Free Glasgow University and started a petition to David Newall and Anton Muscatelli, requesting a change in procurement and investment policy. We also contacted various MSPs to support the campaign, resulting in a Motion being launched in the Scottish Parliament by Patrick Harvie MSP who also came on campus to be interviewed about this movement.

At the end of the meeting, members wrote letters to David Newall to ask that he continues to work with us to pass a resolution in support of the CFCI at the University of Glasgow and help put pressure on companies to invest in sustainable and ethical sourcing of their minerals. We will also start working towards another demonstration on campus and documentary film screening to continue to raise awareness
of the situation in Congo and the power that we have as consumers to bring about change.

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Meeting on Tuesday 15th October- Conflict Minerals, The Student Conference and our Pub Quiz!

Hello everyone, sorry this is so late.

**IMPORTANT: there has been a double booking for our usual slot in Committee Room 1 so we are moving to the ST ANDREWS BUILDING ROOM 443A at the bottom of Gibson Street, opposite The Old Schoolhouse. There will be someone inside to show you where to go.**

First things first, congratulations bakers and crusaders – what a success on Thursday! We certainly marked International Day Against the Death Penalty, raising £121.30 and collecting over 60 signatures for Reggie Clemons: a great start to the year. Thanks again to those of you who stood in the beautiful sunshine/freezing shade to help out.

In summary:

Tomorrow’s meeting – Conflict minerals and the crisis in the DRC

We shall be taking a break from LGBT rights for this week and looking at our conflict minerals campaign. We need to get this back up and running before David Newall (our Secretary of Court) starts thinking that we have disappeared.  I will take you through the Conflict Free Campus Initiative’s mission and give an overview of the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo and how we as consumers are linked to this deadly conflict through the technology that we use every day.

Tuesday 22nd – LGBT rights continued, pizza and ‘Cured’ at The Arches

Presentation on LGBT persecution in Russia. This is when we will take a closer look at the situation in Russia decide how best to use our photos and publicise our ‘Day of Silence’ solidarity action.

I know that some of you didn’t make last week’s meeting and therefore haven’t participated in our LGBT photo campaign, but don’t worry, because we will continue with this the week after. In the meantime, we shall be adding photos of the SRC, GUSA and hopefully the QMU and GUU to the bundle.Also at this meeting we will need to make our visual props for our ‘Love is a Human Right’ Jamnesty in November so we’ll have the paints out again.

This is the day that we were hoping to go and see ‘Stef Smith: Cured’ at The Arches in town. Since it starts at 7.30pm, a brilliant suggestion was put forward for us to grab some Dominos ‘Two for Tuesday’ action during the meeting so that we can head into town together after the meeting. I am currently waiting for a reply about getting a group discount for the play, so will get back to you with that – without discount, tickets are £8.

Tuesday 29th – Guest speakers

Our campaigns officer Dom is working very hard to get someone from Equality Network/the Scottish Transgender Alliance/Patrick Harvie MSP (or all of them!) to come and talk to us about LGBT rights and UK based campaigns.  We’ll keep you posted, but fingers crossed.

Student Conference – book your place!

We will be finalising numbers on Tuesday so that we can book our travel so let us know by then if you are coming!

Dates: 2nd-3rd November 2013

Location: Amnesty International UK HQ – London

Cost: £20 + travel

Fun to be had: Are you kidding? 250 students in the same place at the same time, I guarantee it will be one of your most memorable experiences at university.

There have been several people interested in heading down to London for the Student Conference, which is great. We have 8 places to fill so get cracking and book your place here. Also let us know if you are planning to come and we can all arrange our travel together.

These Amnesty weekends are truly inspirational and empowering.

This year’s agenda includes:

  • Syria: ‘I can still see hope’
  • Afghanistan: Violence against women
  • Sri Lanka: Torture and impunity
  • Northern Ireland: Failure to deal with the legacy of past human rights abuses
  • Looking to Amnesty’s future

As well as this, there will be workshops and campaign actions to get involved with, not forgetting a social event on Saturday night. We shall also be collecting our award for our Secret Policeman’s Ball 2013!

[If you are unable to attend the Student Conference in November, remember that Action for Change happens in March. This is a similar weekend in terms of structure and workshops, but will have different speakers and talks and campaign actions. ]

PUB QUIZ – Sunday 27th in Jim’s Bar

We are all set for our pub quiz – all we need is for you to bring friends. We are making it £3 entry per person, of which £2 will go to us and £1 will be added to the winning pot.

Game on.

See you (somewhere) tomorrow,

Ruth

 

 

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