April 26, 2011
Human rights symposium to feature Amnesty International director and student awards
Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, will speak about its 50th anniversary, and four UW students will receive awards at the UW Human Rights 2011 Symposium on Monday, May 2.
Scheduled for 6 p.m. in the Walker Ames Room in Kane Hall, the event is sponsored by the UW Center for Human Rights, which will mark its second anniversary.
From left, Abby Temple, Ana Lottis, Geoff Morgan and Melanie Robinson.
Abby Temple and Melanie Robinson, who lead the Kenya Human Rights Group at the UW, will use their $1,000 awards to help a primary school In Loitokitok, Kenya implement a new curriculum and a learning resource center. Temple is a junior majoring in history and minoring in African studies and global health. Robinson is a senior majoring in the comparative history of ideas and philosophy.
Those two awards come from the Jennifer Caldwell Endowed Fund in Human Rights. A UW graduate who died in a 2009 traffic accident, Caldwell was a volunteer for Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa, which advocates for fair wages, fair purchasing and respect for human rights. Caldwell also had worked on a Guatemala scholarship program at the UW, and helped push the University to use 100 percent fair-trade coffee.
Geoff Morgan and Ana Lottis, the other two student winners, will receive $1,300 apiece from the Abe Osheroff and Gunnel Clark Endowed Human Rights Fund for Students, which recognizes Osheroffs dedication as a human rights activist.
Morgan will work in Guatemala, helping gauge impacts of agroindustrial plantations. He is a sixth-year student, planning to graduate this quarter in civil and environmental engineering as well as international studies. Lottis will work with former political prisoners in El Salvador. She is a senior majoring in Latin American and Caribbean studies and minoring in human rights.
