12/10/2019 MASHPEE INCLUSION AND DIVERSITY COMMITTEE Minutes

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MMHS Human Rights Club 2019-2020 Co-Advisors:Aphrodite Purdy& Celeste Reynolds In Small places, close to home—so close and so small cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet, they are the world of the individual person: the neighborhood one lives in;the school or college one attends; the factory,farm or office where one works. Such are the places where everyone seeks equal justice, equal opportunity,equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere." Eleanor Roosevelt—US Delegate and leader of the UN Commission on Human Rights at its inception. The MHS Human Rights Club is proud to announce our participation in the 2019 Human Rights Academy sponsored by the Barnstable County Human Rights commission.The club was very active between 2006 and 2013. One of the ultimate goals of human rights education is the creation of a genuine human rights culture.To do so,students must learn to evaluate real-life experiences in human rights terms,starting with their own behavior and the immediate community in which they live. They need to make an honest assessment of how the reality they experience every day conforms to human rights principles and then to take active responsibility for improving their community. A"universal culture of human rights" requires that people everywhere must learn this"common language of humanity"and realize it in th-eir daily lives. Eleanor Roosevelt's appeal for education about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is no less urgent decades later: Where,after all, do universal rights begin? In small places,close to home. Unless these rights have meaning there,they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home,we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world- But to uphold their rights such concerned citizens need first to know them. "Progress in the larger world," must start with human rights education in just those "small places, close to home."Conveying this"common language of humanity" is the whole purpose of human rights education. The Mashpee Middle High School students who have agreed to participate in this training are the kind of students imagined by Mrs. Roosevelt who want to understand and embrace the fundamental principles of human dignity and equality and accept the personal responsibility to defend the rights of all people.