Standing up for their rights

SOCIAL ISSUES

The students of St Anne’s Degree College for Women, Halasuru, celebrated the ‘World Human Rights Day’ recently. As part of the celebrations, they went on a rally and visited an orphanage.

 The event kickstarted with the screening of a video on human rights. The articles of the Indian Constitution were presented in a graphic manner in this video. This was followed by the screening of a short film. This was a compilation of images of children from across the world. As a song played in the background, the photos of children swiftly passed through the screen.

The video tried to capture the despair, hunger, poverty of these children and the lack of equality among them.

The students then held placards, which had messages such as ‘Stop The Injustice’ and ‘You Deserve To Have Rights’ and marched out on a rally. Interestingly, the students volunteered to be a part of this programme. While most of the students are on vacations or busy with exams, these students took the responsibility of sensitising people about human rights.

Veenu Albert, the professor behind this initiative, said, “When people see that injustice is being meted out to someone, they just ignore and walk away thinking it’s not their business. We never realise the importance of equality unless someone ill-treats us. So we decided to do our bit for the society and teach people the significance of knowing our rights. Our message to everyone is ‘Know your rights to exercise your rights’.”

Students were excited to be a part of this celebration and actively organised the events by sharing the responsibilities.

 Presinna, a first-year BCA student, said, “I had read about human rights when I was in school. But I have never actively taken part in any drive to teach people about these rights. When I heard about this rally, I decided to extend my support.

We will give print-outs, consisting of necessary helpline numbers, to the people on the road. These will have the details of the people who can be contacted during an emergency and other
important information.”