World Tour 2009 Newsletter

International
15 July 2009

Barbados Barbados

Youth for Human Rights World Tour 2009 proved to be a feast of variety and adventure as YHRI President Mary Shuttleworth, Ed.D., visited countries large and small, made new friends and spread her message of peace and tolerance around the world.

We started out in Mexico, which featured meetings with multinational media and telecommunications corporations, as well as national government agencies for youth, antidiscrimination and human rights.

One of the highlights of the visit to Barbados was a meeting with education officials and with senior leaders in the national government, who extended an impromptu invitation for YHRI to appear in a parade, which occurred the next day.

The visit to Colombia featured meetings with senior officials in broadcasting, the military, and the office of the President of Colombia. The visit included an event co-sponsored by several government agencies.

Argentina was the first country in the Southern Cone of South America to be visited by YHRI. Dr. Shuttleworth met with several leaders of government and private organizations and gave a presentation at the legislature of Buenos Aires.

Timor-Leste Timor-Leste

Our visit to Timor-Leste, one of the world’s newest countries, featured meetings with senior officials from the government and the international community. It was followed by a visit to Darwin, Australia, to meet with aborigines living there.

The Middle East portion of the World Tour featured meetings with leading nonprofit organizations in Amman, Jordan, including a world-class children’s museum. This meeting and others at museums and national libraries in several countries demonstrated that our human rights programs are what the leaders of these important educational cultural institutions need and want.

Darwin, Australia Darwin, Australia

Next was Moscow, which featured meetings with senior education officials and the director of the national youth library.

Switzerland was a last-minute addition to the World Tour route after YHRI received an official invitation to represent youth at the Durban Review Conference at the United Nations in Geneva. The UN flew in Angelo Kreuzberger, one of our youth ambassadors. Angelo’s presentation, entitled “Intercultural Dialogue and Human Rights,” was very well received.

The visit to South Africa broke new ground with visits to a museum at a historical site where Mahatma Ghandi and Nelson Mandela were incarcerated. Additional meetings were held with officials of the national government, military, media and the national library.

The World Tour visit to Uganda featured meetings with members of parliament and a presentation at a leading university.

Reaching six continents, the World Tour visited government officials, orphans, educators and and broadcast media organizations. New horizons opened up in sectors of society not previously approached, including children’s museums and multinational corporations. The response around the world demonstrated the enormous international acceptance and demand for the quality human rights education programs offered by YHRI.

The next horizon is the upcoming YHRI International Summit, to be held in Geneva at the end of August. This will mark the first time that the International Summit is held in Europe.