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A Broken Dream- Human Rights in Urban America

Human Rights Through Education (HRTE) Proudly Presents

A Broken Dream: Human Rights in Urban America

With generous support from the Center for Ethics in Public Life, the Institute for the Humanities, MSA Peace and Social Justice Commission, and The Ginsberg Center

Friday, Feb. 11 & Saturday, Feb. 12

Rackham Ampitheater

All events free and open to the public

Friday, Feb. 11

> 4:45 PM Amber Arellano

Executive director of the Education Trust-Midwest -- the Midwest presence of the national Ed Trust, which is one of the oldest and most influential ed reform organizations in the U.S. Amber has worked at the United Nations under the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland, Mary Robinson

> 5:30PM Screening of "The Vanishing City" with Directors Jen Senko And Fiore DeRosa

Winner of Best short documentary at the Harlem International film festival, and best documentary at the Williamsburg Film Festival, and the Los Angeles International film festival. Told through the eyes of tenants, city planners, business owners, scholars, and politicians, The Vanishing City exposes the real politics behind the alarming disappearance of New York’s beloved neighborhoods, the truth about its finance-dominated economy, and the myth of “inevitable change.” Followed by a Q&A with the Directors!

Saturday, Feb. 12

> 10:30 AM Registration and Refreshments

> 11:00-12:00 PM Chazz Miller-Public Art Workz

> *Co-sponsored By the Detroit Partnership

Chazz is the founder and muralist at Public Art Workz. Chazz founded Public Art Workz to stimulate community growth, provide a creative outlet for children and instill an appreciation of the arts. PAWZ offers enrichment programs in art and technology and helps to drive academic achievement

> 12:00-1:00 PM Mo Abdollahi: The DREAM

Local activist and undocumented Iranian immigrant who helped start the national campaign for the DREAM Act, and a co-founder of ONEMichigan, a youth-led statewide immigrant rights organization

> 1:00-2:00PM Lunch

> 2:00-3:00PM Nusrat Ventimiglia

> *Co-sponsored by SAPAC

Director of Victim Services at Equality Michigan she will speak about the state of LGBT rights in the State of Michgian, along with a Youth Advocate from the Ruth Ellis Center

> 3:00-4:0PM Faculty Panel-The Reality of Human Rights and Social Justice in Urban America

Professors Scott Kurashige, Matthew Lassiter, and Margaret Dewar

> 4:00-4:30PM Slam Poetry

Featuring Aimee Le, Ann Arbor Poetry Slam winner who was featured on the HBO Series "Brave New Voices"

> 7:00 PM Hari Kondabolu Performance, Vandenberg Room, Michigan League

Comic Hari Kondabolu (www.harithecomic.com) has a Masters degree in Human Rights from the London School of Economics, and has been featured on Comedy Central and Jimmy Kimmel Live. His material addresses human rights and urban rights issues in a novel format, reflecting the work he spent as an immigrants rights organizer

If you have any questions or would like tickets to Hari's Performance, please e-mail us at hrtecore@umich.edu

Slam Poetry Featuring Aimee Le-4pm Feb 12th

Nusrat Ventimiglia from Equality Michigan-2PM, Feb 12th

Nusrat Ventimiglia is the Director of Victim Services at Equality Michigan she will speak about the state of LGBT rights in the State of Michgian, along with a Youth Advocate from the Ruth Ellis Center

EQUALITY MICHIGAN MISSION STATEMENT

"Equality Michigan works to achieve full equality and respect for all people in the state of Michigan regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. Equality Michigan’s number one priority is a fully inclusive, non-discrimination policy by 2014, on our way to full legal equality including full marriage equality. As we achieve this change, we will count and counter through advocacy services acts of discrimination from bullying in the schoolyard, to wrongful termination in the workplace, to acts of violence committed against LGBT people in our community."

source: http://equalitymi.org/our-organization/about-us/

Mo Abdollahi 12pm, Feb. 12th

Mo Abdollahi, an undocumented student who was arrested

CRUZZER | Myspace Video

"Mohammad Abdollahi, was one of the undocumented "Dream Act 5" students who were arrested in Senator John Mc­Cain's office in Tucson for Civil Disobedience" Source: http://www.myspace.com/video/vid/105067603

Mo is a Local activist and undocumented Iranian immigrant who helped start the national campaign for the DREAM Act, and a co-founder of ONEMichigan, a youth-led statewide immigrant rights organization

Amber Arellano, 4:45PM, Feb 11th

"Amber Arellano is the executive director of the Education Trust-Midwest. Most recently a columnist and editorial board writer for The Detroit News, Arellano has extensive experience in the worlds of journalism and public policy. In 2009 the National Association of Hispanic Journalists named her Commentator of the Year for what it called her “influential and crusading” coverage of Michigan education. Throughout her career she has covered immigration, politics and education in the Midwest, Southern California, and Mexico, and done policy work in the U.S. and Europe. She won national awards for her work as the Race Relations Reporter for The Detroit Free Press.

Arellano holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of Michigan's Ford School of Public Policy, where she specialized in poverty policy. She studied at the Universidad de Guanajuato in Mexico, and earned her bachelor’s degree in secondary education and journalism from Michigan State University.

She has taught and mentored students of every age, from elementary school to college. A Pontiac native and daughter of a community activist mom and United Auto Worker father, she is the first in her family to go to college. She is passionate about making sure all Michigan kids have access to great public schools—and a shot at their own American dream."

For more information visit: http://www.edtrust.org/midwest/about

The Broken Dream: Human Rights in Urban America

Our conference, "The Broken Dream: Human rights in Urban America" focuses on the changing demographics of cities as well as examines the unequal protection of civil rights in vulnerable populations: children and the right to education, immigrants rights, tenants rights, and LGBTQ Rights and issues. We also focus on the right of citizens to organize and act in response to these violations.

Our conference seeks to shed light on human rights violations in our backyard: the towns and cities that make up our nation. The urban metropolis has become the battleground for a myriad of human rights issues in the United States. As a nation founded on ideals of "liberty and justice for all," we can only be defined by how well we live out these values. This conference looks to examine the root causes behind dynamics of inequality, discrimination, and violence which affect our nation's cities, and to propose effective and sustainable solutions to end cycles of poverty and injustice. We seek to make these issues accessible so that concerned individuals can gain a deeper insight into the complexities of human rights violations in our country, and can become informed catalysts for social change. In this way we hope to encourage conference attendees and the campus community to look beyond preconceptions about our cities, and gain deeper insight into the problems facing urban America today. We believe that the ultimate success of any academic initiative depends not only on what it gives to attendees, but on what it demands of them as well. With that in mind, "The Broken Dream: Human Rights in Urban America" has the potential to be an event of great and lasting significance for all parties involved.