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“Amnesty focuses its efforts on several topics each year and the group here chooses what it wants to promote,” Williams said.

Hannah Vogel, the Amnesty Student Area Coordinator for Western Pennsylvania and the president of the Allderdice chapter, discovered that Invisible Children Inc. would be coming to the area and decided that the topic of child victims in Uganda would be a fitting focus for the group.

“There were meetings with other school and social action groups to organize local events,” Williams said. “On March 24th, for example, a benefit concert featuring bands from across the country was held at Fox Chapel Presbyterian Church to promote awareness of child soldiers.” Amnesty International is a worldwide organization that promotes the presence of global watchdog groups in order to maintain unalienable, universal, and indivisible human rights. The groups consist of members who track human rights practices across the world, comparing the treatment that is seen with that which is expected under internationally accepted standards. In the 52 countries where the organization has a strong presence, members are organized into geographical sections. In the US, each state has its own section and, within each, there are groups for individual cities and, further still, individual schools. The organization is characterized by its habit of inundating governments with letters and initiating petitions in response to human rights violations or “prisoners of conscience.” The term, invented by Amnesty International founder and civil rights lawyer Peter Benenson, is defined by Amnesty International as any persons imprisoned solely on account of “the peaceful expression of their beliefs.”

Sonya Henze, the teacher sponsor for the group, suggests that students consider Amnesty International Pittsburgh as a future activity.

“The group encourages new membership,” she said.

Meetings take place on Tuesdays after school in room 385 and generally last for no longer than twenty minutes.

Movie poster of film “Invisible Children”.

Amnesty alerts 'Dice to Invisible Children's Plight

By: Christa Pluff

The Allderdice Foreword

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