The National Center for Civil and Human Rights

The National Center for Civil and Human Rights will be convene a group of local, diverse community members who will meet semi-weekly for two months beginning in September 2014.  Group members will be coming to the table with varying levels of knowledge and perspectives on past and present immigration issues. The cohort will participate in four programs that highlight specific media, including: lecture, film, music, and performance. After each experience, the group will engage in dialogue (led by a facilitator with guided questions), synthesizing what they learned during the experience and tying that to their own experiences and feelings. At the end of each session, participants will leave with one “action item” to complete before the next meeting. Action items will be small, simple assignments intended to allow participants to apply their knowledge to everyday life. At the conclusion of the series, the group will work together to develop a joint set of goals and measurable outcomes to further bring the lessons learned from these dialogues to the broader community.

Because the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is central to The Center’s mission,its articles and overarching themes will also be woven throughout the program and there will be basic training on human rights principles for all participants. The dialogues will seek to contextualize issues around immigration in a broader discourse of human rights and social justice, focusing on the intersection of race and ethnicity and immigration status.