Feedback on the Human Rights event

Ok, so last week I attended this Human Rights event called MR-dagarna here in Stockholm, Sweden. My own personal over all feeling about it is that it was very succesful. Two thousand people gathered at the Stockholm International Fair to tune in on what's new concerning human rights issues and situations. I'm especially happy about two of the seminars that I went to and their speakers. Ironically, I think I would have missed them if it wasn't for the fact that the reason I got there in the first place was because I was attending them as a volunteer, making sure all the practical things was in order. So, this is an encouragement - help out as a volunteer at these kinds of events and you might, besides having a lot of fun, enjoy valuable meetings with really nice and genuine people :)

So the first seminar I attended as a volunteer was held by a woman named Kathy Kelly. A woman of great passion for the afflicted. She spoke about her experiences in Iraq in the middle of the war zone, living there and meeting with Iraqi refugees. In this little room of maybe ten persons she spoke with the same fire as the day after in the big hall for two thousand people. Like I said, a woman of great passion for the afflicted. It turned out we had some mutual friends that had been with her and the organization in Iraq she was part of founding called "Voices in the Wilderness" (now called "Voices for Creative Nonviolence"). It was a true encouragement to me that we could sit down and talk about Iraq, activism and the way we're meeting Iraqi kids in Vårberg. So, if you're reading this Kathy, you know...but I think you do already :) http://http//vcnv.org/

The second, very interesting and informative seminar was held by Jörg Gasser, which turned out to be Daniel D'Esposito's (editor of Human Rights Tools) former colleague at ICRC. Small world huh. Jörg spoke very well about ICRC's visits to persons deprived of liberty at detention centers. What I believe was stressed throughout the seminar, or at least, that I picked up on, was the emphasis in this ICRC work to establish a dialogue with the authorities. I was very pleased to hear Jörg speak about this philosophy being implemented as an ICRC working method. He gave me a great link for further thoughts on this. The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue is an off-spring to ICRC that works to promote and facilitate dialogue among belligerents. It is active in a number of conflict resolution projects around the world and in support of these projects they conduct research and analysis bringing forward practical policy recommendations to improve international efforts to secure and sustain peace. Check it out - it's really good!
http://www.hdcentre.org./