Awake

March Commuter Reading: Commission on Human Rights, Somali Bantu refugees, Dalits in India

It's time for another edition of Amber's commuter reading list. This edition is inspired by the 61st session of the Commission on Human Rights, a new volunteer opportunity that I am starting soon (tutoring students from the Somali Bantu refugee community in Beaverton), and an upcoming presentation I plan to give to work colleagues about my recent trip to India in which I will talk about the situation of the Dalits in India. As I was remarking to my dear friend Leah the other day, "I am excited and hopeful about the future." There's a lot to be done.

From the 61st Session of the Commission on Human Rights, which is going on right now, here are a few reports that I plucked out from the very extensive list of Human Rights Documents (these are all PDFs):

• Mission to Canada - Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people, Rodolfo Stavenhagen (Indigenous Issues, Human rights and indigenous issues)
• Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the situation of human rights in Timor-Leste (I'm glad I printed this out because at this moment the link is missing from the list of documents of the 61st session...) Contains some interesting observations about problems training judiciary officials because of language barriers created by the establishment of Portuguese as one of the official languages of East Timor. (If they put the link back in, I'll update this post.)
• Press Kit: 61st Session of the Commission on Human Rights. The introduction contains some interesting background and historical information about the establishment of the Comission. It inspired me to put this book on hold at Central.
• Fact Sheet No.7/Rev.1, Complaint Procedures. Haven't started this one yet. It's on the list though.

Little rabbit trail: speaking of conflict reporting, I found a few links via this conflict profile on Nagorno-Karabakh from AlertNet:

• International Crisis Group (Crisis Group) - Conflict prevention and resolution
• Institute for War & Peace Reporting
• EurasiaNet.org - Central Asia, Caucasus News

And now, a more local focus: the Somali Bantu refugee community relocated to my neck of the suburban woods: Beaverton, Oregon.

• SOMALI BANTU - Their History and Culture. This material was developed specifically for people who are or will be working with this group of people (hey, that's me!). Very informative.
• The Trib has written several articles about the relocation of this refugee group to P-town:
  • Out of Africa, on to a fresh start (28-Mar-2003)
  • Bantu family finds new home and new hope (30-Mar-2004)
  • Refugees find freedom isn't free (31-Aug-2004)
  • Bantus find a niche in nurseries (30-Nov-2004)

Finally, I am planning to give a presentation to my work colleagues on my recent trip to India. Since awareness of the Dalits in India is low, if not nonexistent, in my workplace, I thought my audience would find it interesting to learn about the Dalits. To prepare, Leah has sent me several interesting articles written by Joseph D'souza and JJ at Village also gave me Joseph's book and the National Geographic issue with the article, "India's Untouchables".

Reading is good. Doing is better. But knowing how to do the right thing and knowing what exactly needs to be done is even better than that.

Happy. Happy. Joy. Joy. :-)