Human Rights

Surprises are the best!

One of my best friends, Kim, lives in Hamilton, Ontario. On an adventure to Hamilton to do some house searching many, many moons ago, Kim and I were introduced and basically became instant best friends. She shared her life story, while I listened and played with our mutual friend Cory’s cat. It really was the beginning of an awesome friendship-- from that day I knew that when my wonderful husband and I finally moved to Hamilton, there was one person I could rely on for a hangout, an errand run, and other general fun.

Fast forward to the end of 2015 and Kim and I hadn’t seen each other in 11 months. We skyped and texted to remain in contact, but my move to Winnipeg left us thousands of miles apart. While the length of time between visits wasn’t supposed to be this long, surprise visit after re-scheduled surprise visit never ended up working out. Until Christmas…

Kim’s boyfriend bought her a surprise trip to Winnipeg for her holiday time off work. She found out on Christmas eve and arrived in Winterpeg on Christmas day! It was fun to hangout and do life together again—spending hours on the couch watching movies, colouring, drinking peach cosmo’s and obviously Taylor Swift in the form of music and concert (on apple music, haha) was involved. As much as we could jam pack our days lingering in the warmth of the apartment, I knew I would need to plan a few things to do together. One of the scheduled outings was to the Human Rights Museum.

Kim and I after our museum adventure.

Even after hearing mixed reviews about the museum, I knew Kim and I would both enjoy our time taking in all the information and exhibits the museum had to offer. We arrived on a chilly Sunday morning eager to use our expired student ID’s and learn more about human rights.

The museum was rich with information on a global history of how human rights have been denied to many people—from the holocaust, to the residential school system where aboriginal children were removed from their homes and placed elsewhere; from those with disabilities being looked at as a sub-human, to rights of freedom of speech, hate speech and other discriminatory issues. It was eye opening to learn so many unknown facets behind common events. While some historical atrocities are known to most people, it’s amazing how many have happened that we had no idea about—and how many are still happening that no one speaks of.

One display in particular which really resonated with me was on how our consumerism affects human rights around the world. The display was made up of solid white replicas of common items we use—canola oil, cell phones, makeup, etc. You would stand where one item was on display, touch the screen in front of you, and see the information which shows how we, as Canadians and as members of modern society, are negatively impacting those around us. From information about minerals being mined for our cell phones, to children picking cotton for our clothing, it was a display I hope people take to heart when they visit.

The ‘inspiring change’ area was obviously my favourite part of the museum. As you journey from the first floor up to the seventh, you learn about both the forward strides and pitfalls of human rights around the world. It's easy to be discouraged, but it's also be a great time to reflect on what we can do to make a difference.  Reflection is encouraged and a space is provided for you reflect, write and share your thoughts on a card to be displayed. Each card begins with a prompt which vary from “I Imagine…” to “I am inspired by…”, “I believe…”, “Reconciliation is…”, “Inclusion is…” and more.

As someone who is aware of some of the issues where human rights are denied in the areas of human trafficking, there were so many things I wanted to write on all of the various cards.

“I imagine a world where humans are treated as people with hearts and minds, and not as property to be bought and sold.”

“I believe a world with less greed will be a world where human rights problems are solved.”

“I am inspired by the stories of human trafficking survivors who teach us to never give up hope, to fight for what is right, and who encourage us that one person speaking up for the voiceless can make a real difference.”

While all these thoughts came to mind I was drawn to the “Respect is…” card.

Respect is something we give out like currency based on the actions of those around us. Say something I don’t agree with that is perhaps slanderous to another person? You loose some respect. Stand up for someone? You gain respect. Make a poor business decision? Respect is lost. Make financially sound decisions? You are respected...

This becomes tricky. Handing out respect like currency is like handing out joy, freedom, honesty, and even hate, jealousy and anger with price tags attached—each one providing you with value, each one making you either a better person or a worse person. What’s more, is we openly share our personal views of other people to reflect their ‘value’ in our eyes. ‘That person is weird’, ‘That person did xyz so I don’t respect them’, ‘This person is arrogant’. It’s a vicious cycle of negativity stemming from one person thinking their opinion of another is the most important, and their experience dictates what another person should or shouldn’t believe.

“Respect is… understanding acceptance doesn’t mean agreement. You can love + respect those with different ideals while holding onto your own.”

Our job isn’t to judge, it’s to love and listen and discuss and accept people regardless of what they do or what they think. You can disagree with someone’s choices in life or opinions on things without negatively dragging them down or saying they are wrong. To them, they are right.

While this doesn’t work in all extreme cases (murdering someone doesn’t gain a ‘you be you’ response), in the case of accepting and loving our neighbors, co-workers, bank tellers, waiters, sales associates, and ‘friends of a friend’, it makes a big difference.

Respect is required.  I can respect you and disagree with your choices. I can love you as a human being even if I don’t want to live a life like you do. The concept isn’t hard to understand—let’s make living it out that easy too!

The Girl In The Picture: Thailand

Myanmar.

What an interesting place to travel to.

When you cross the border they take away your passport and give you a temporary piece of identification that becomes your lifeline. It contains a picture of yourself taken that day by the border security, your passport number, name (excluding your last name), birthdate and a number. That number is your connection to your passport the government is now holding. Upon leaving Myanmar, you hand in this piece of paper and retrieve back your oh-so-valued Canadian passport.

This process leaves many volunteers feeling vulnerable and, to put it quite honestly, kind of sketched out. You have been told all your life how precious your passport is—keep an eye on it, never let it leave your side when you are travelling, lock it in a safe when you arrive at your destination, keep a photocopy in your luggage, take a picture. Your passport, especially one of Canadian citizenship, is beyond valuable to the bearer and allows you access to anywhere your heart desires in the entire world. And here you are, trying to access another country only to find out they are going to take it away and hand you a flimsy piece of card-stock with random information on it instead, while they will KEEP your passport?! That piece of card-stock becomes your everything. You guard it with your life as if it were your actual passport because handing that piece of paper back in is the only way you get your beloved passport back.

#CatLadyInBurma

This piece of card-stock comes with some limitations—you are only allowed in the country for 14 days, no sharing or transfers, and you are only allowed in the tourist zones of the country. That’s right, folks, Burma has set tourist zones where us foreigners are allowed to visit. You go too far, step out of the limits, and police have their say. We are nothing but mere tourists in this country with a troubled past and questionable present situation. As the tourists we were, we visited a couple temples (the Chinese temple had a cat which made me a happy lady #CatLadyInBurma), hit up the massive border market (my size stretchy floral print pants are perfect for 36 hours of travel) and we were sure to stay inside the tourist zone limits.

The Garbage Dump.

While in these limits we had the opportunity to drive past a very interesting area. This area is home to the beginnings of a huge international school, massive shopping complex, high end real estate, and the over 300 people that currently call the garbage dump home. The issue is, the garbage dump is quite the eye-sore in what will soon be a wealthy neighbourhood. The garbage dump is so undesirable to the vision of the area it begs the question of why they even chose to build there in the first place. Instead of building somewhere else, they have decided to clear the garbage dump of it’s residents, displacing hundreds of individuals and families who are stateless, providing no help to them. If their already dire situation wasn’t bad enough, forcing them out with no assistance is the exact way to make the situation worse. It’s unimaginable to everyone on the trip why this happens-- how the rich can easily forget the poor are human beings; individuals with value, hearts capable of love and limitless dreams.

Kru Nam answering questions
and New translating.

The child residents of the garbage dump are some of the same individuals that visit the drop-in centre on the Thailand side of the Burma/Thailand border. The drop-in centre is a place where street kids can come to get a meal, medical attention, hangout, and learn about the children’s home. Kru Nam was there the day we visited and we experienced her in action—reaching out to children and offering her help, building their trust and hoping they will accept her invitation to a life of love and education at the children’s home.

The combination of Kru Nam and eager to learn volunteers always makes for an interesting, informative, and emotional conversation. The volunteers asked many questions, and while statistics rocked our world and shattered our perceptions of Burma and the way individuals are treated, it’s the stories that stay with you and really change your heart.

One of the volunteers had asked about disease and sickness in the garbage dump—her question, as a doctor, was of how their must be so much devastation there. Kru Nams response was that if you were to ask the families living there about being sick, they would respond with ‘what do you mean?’. Their entire lives they are unwell. Sickness is normal for them—it’s common, it is something they live with every day. It’s not like how when we get sick it’s a noticeable difference from how we feel when we are ‘healthy’. For them this is how they are every single day. To expand on this with a tangible example, Kru Nam started handing around a picture of a little girl who is smiling and laughing as she stands behind a little boy who is playing the violin. The girl in the photograph, WaWa, is described as an awesome little girl. At her young age, she fell victim to the preventable sickness and disease of the garbage dump and passed away as a child of not even 13 years old. As the picture was passed and we each had the opportunity to put a face to the facts, you could see how the information went from head to heart.

Burma has the most human rights violations in the world. When the cyclone hit in 2008, the Burmese government denied the UN access to provide aid, furthering the amount of death and devastation, which could have been preventable. A noteworthy quote from the discussion referencing the situation was ‘just forget about human rights’.

The Declaration of Human Rights,
Article 25. December, 1948 hanging up
in the Mexican restaurant

A poster at a Mexican restaurant we went to in Chiang Mai references the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25 from December 1948. It states:

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood.

While it can be easy in our North American society to think the Universal Declaration of Human Rights rings true to individuals everywhere, it doesn't. For those in both our own communities, and our greater global community, there are too many WaWa’s proving this is not the case.

Thanks for the image, Pinterest!