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Professor Anu Taranath Welcomes Three Human Rights Activists to “Global Service Learning and the Politics of Help” Course

Prof. Taranath's class, "Global Service Learning and the Politics of Help", in Accra, Ghana.

July 23, 2024

By Anu Taranath

 

In March with support from UWCHR, my co-director Dr. Eric Opoku Agyemang and I were able to host three activists to speak with our students, one each from Ghana, India and Mexico. Our class, “Global Service Learning and the Politics of Help,” occurred in Winter Quarter 2024 and culminated in students traveling to Accra, Ghana, for two weeks at the end of the quarter and over spring break.

We had wonderful interactions with each speaker! Indhu Subramaniam, a former executive director for a legal-education NGO, spoke with the students about the realities of maintaining a feminist-oriented women’s organization in India in the context of challenges from the authoritarian right. She discussed how one stays focused in the face of outside political pressures, and how she has worked to maintain integrity as the organization’s executive director. Indhu also shared that integrity doesn’t always mean staying with something. Sometimes, knowing when to walk away can offer us incredible integrity and challenge our social justice norms of unhealthily staying, simply to show our solidarity and commitment for others. Integrity is ultimately about knowing oneself, reading the room well, and being able to make difficult choices.

 

Integrity is ultimately about knowing oneself, reading the room well, and being able to make difficult choices.

 

Oppong Nyantakyi serves as a Projects and Volunteers Coordinator for Cheerful Hearts Foundation, a non-profit working to promote education and stop child labor and trafficking in the Central Region of Ghana. He spoke to our students about his experiences working with hundreds of international volunteers, and how challenging it sometimes is to help them learn about the local context. Volunteers come anywhere from two weeks to several months. In the short-term postings, volunteers are often unfamiliar with the cultural context of rural Ghana, how the fishing villages operate, the role of formal education, village governance, gender dynamics and so many other nuances. Oppong spoke about what it is like being the point person to help teach this information, and how we can increase our sensitivity across cultural boundaries.

 

He spoke about how he has developed sensitivity to listen to people’s experiences that are far from his own, and how that has shaped his activist journey.

 

Oppong Nyantakyi (projects and volunteers coordinator for Cheerful Hearts Foundation), Francisco Tenorio-Hernández (Mexican human rights defender), Indhu Subramaniam (former executive director for a legal-education NGO in India), and Professor Anu Taranath in Ghana in March, 2024.

Francisco Tenorio-Hernández is a human rights defender based in Mexico with experience on youth, education, cross-cultural understanding, and sexual minority rights. Francisco shared with our students his experiences working with rural indigenous communities in Mexico as an urban educated man from the nation’s capital. He spoke about how he has developed sensitivity to listen to people’s experiences that are far from his own, and how that has shaped his activist journey. He also shared with us the differences he’s seen between working for change in an appointed role within an NGO, organization or government agency, and working for change in less-formal structures through community connections, direct service or barter systems.

All the discussions were rich and illuminating. Thank you, UWCHR, for your support!

 

The visits of Oppong Nyantakyi, Francisco Tenorio-Hernández, Indhu Subramaniam to Anu Taranath’s class were supported by the UW Center for Human Rights’ Speaker Honoraria Fund, which funds classroom speakers with a front-line perspective on human rights efforts.