Meeting Minutes
This is where you can get any information from our past meetings. If you missed any meetings, read our meeting summaries and look at our pictures here!
Hey, HRF Community!
Before we began the core of this meeting, our president Lamisa spoke about our Forum’s future! Here’s a timeline of events: EXCLUSIVE GENDERCIDE EXHIBIT TOUR Saturday, February 11th from 11AM-1PM Fashion Industry Gallery 1807 Ross Ave, Dallas, TX Learn about the Gendercide Awareness Project: http://www.gendap.org/index.html READ-A-THON Our collaboration with Room to Read ends Wednesday, February 15th! Be sure to log your hours-- reaching our goal can make a global difference in the lives of females who don’t have the same access to education as we do. HUMAN RIGHTS FORUM FEBRUARY PHOTO CHALLENGE: #RightToRead Wednesday, February 8th to Tuesday, February 14th Post a picture of your favorite book that follows the criteria listed below. In your caption, tell us why it’s your favorite book! Day 1: Favorite Book with One Word Title Day 2: Favorite Book about Black History Day 3: Favorite Book by Female Author Day 4: Favorite Book by International Author Day 5: Favorite Historical Fiction Day 6: Favorite Tear-Jerker Day 7: Favorite Literature You Studied in Class SCHOOL-WIDE GOLDEN DOOR FOOD PANTRY (in partnership with Senior Exec, NHS, and Interact Club) This Food Pantry is meant to help students of our school who are in need of extra food and toiletries at home! Boxes will be spread around the school in all classrooms. Students and teachers can donate non-perishable food items and personal hygiene items to a nearby classroom or to Mrs. Perkins in the counseling office! Donating 6 items = 1 service hour! AFRICAN AMERICAN READ-IN Sunday, February 19th from 3-4PM Josey Ranch Lake Public Library 1700 Keller Springs Rd, Carrollton, TX 75006 Come be a part of living history! This Read-In is to celebrate Black History Month. All are welcome to learn about African American authors, stories, poems, and songs. Special guests will read selections aloud for the audience. (Free books will be given to teens and light refreshments will be provided!) CAFÉ CHAT MEETING Friday, February 24th at 7:30AM NW225 Ms. Behnisch’s Room Come meet English language learners and make them feel welcomed at NSHS. We always play fun games. Also, please bring breakfast foods to share! UPSTANDING GUEST SPEAKER SERIES: BE PROJECT Wednesday, March 8th right after school NW117 Community Room near Cafeteria Nicole Head from The Family Place’s Be Project will be speaking to us about how we can help domestic violence and bullying victims! Learn more about the organization here: http://familyplacebeproject.org/ In the wake of the threats to defund Planned Parenthood in Texas’ Medicaid program, the recent travel ban against Muslims, the plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, our Forum decided to put matters into our hands, seeking change by writing letters to our representatives and demanding for our opinions to be voiced. Typing away on our Chromebooks, we emailed big-names such as Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, our two Texas U.S. Senators. We wrote about how valuable Title 1 funding and Pell Grants are to us, as well as how scared we are of open carry laws and easy access to assault rifles. We hope that with this meeting and letter writing campaign, our members have realized their power in influencing those who may not be so far from our reach! You can find many resources (including addresses and emails) of our local, state, and national representatives. Emailing them is great, but you should also take the time to handwrite letters and mail or deliver them yourself! You are a citizen with a voice that needs to be heard. Resources here: http://humanrightsforum.weebly.com/2016-2017-projects We hope to see you at our next Café Chat meeting on February 24th, 2017 in NW225! Respectfully submitted, Kathy Pham
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The Human Rights Forum discussed gender equality and women's right at our meeting on Wednesday, January 25th, 2017. We talked about about discrimination in a country that is supposedly a beacon of equality. We found out that women in the United States of America do not actually enjoy equal rights to men. What would you do? Our members brainstormed many different ideas. The fact that theses numbers represent the US made our hearts ache, but also made us want to go out and do something! We agreed that representation in different media platforms influences us measurably. If girls see themselves in successful female bosses in Hollywood movies, they will be encouraged to aspire higher. If boys see themselves being open with their emotions on screen, they will be unafraid to show how they truly feel.
The video below is from Emma Watson speaking to the United Nations. She addresses various issues including how many people are afraid of the word feminism. Her HeForShe campaign is an effort to bring together all people, not just women, in the fight for gender equality. Emma Watson also has an amazing feminism book club that you can easily join by following this link: www.goodreads.com/group/show/179584-our-shared-shelf Ms. Behnisch found this amazing article about a study conducted on gender bias in education. The sociological ramifications of gender bias poses the question: who and what needs to change? We need to assess our societal values and include boys in the conversation. Explore how the US ranks among other countries in the Global Gender Gap Report: http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2016/ Our first meeting of 2017 went great! We talked about our big spring project this year: fundraising for Room to Read! Head over to our blog post about the Read-A-Thon to learn about how you can make a global difference in the lives of many children.
After talking about upcoming events and the importance of MLK Day, we worked on making a Progress Chart poster for our Read-A-Thon! We hope to see you at our next meeting, Wednesday January 25th, 3:40 PM @ NW225! Explore the pictures below, taken by the amazingly talented Steve Barboza. At our fourth meeting of the year, we watched part of the inspiring documentary, Half the Sky. The movie focused on Room to Read's girls' education efforts in Vietnam. Gabrielle Union went around to meet two girls who were supported by Room to Read and their families. One of the girls' parents said "they were originally hesitant to let their daughter go to school instead of making her do work at home, but once they talked to a Room to Read representative, they realized that education is what would allow their daughter to be successful and rise from poverty." Here's the link to where you can watch Half the Sky: http://www.halftheskymovement.org/pages/film We're so excited to tell you that we will be directly helping Room to Read's impactful and important work. Next January, we will be having a school wide Read-a-thon: the number of hours we read will be transferred to a dollar amount that RTR will donate in our name! In early February, we will have a capstone event to end our fundraising for RTR. We're going to host a coffeehouse / open-mic night- all proceeds from ticket sales, food sales, and auctioning will go directly to help build a school and library in a developing country. Room to Read's motto is "world change starts with educated children." We whole heartedly believe that every child has the right to dream, to hope, and to get a quality education to help them reach their full potential. We're so excited to be helping this amazing organization. We're so glad that watching Half the Sky opened the eyes of those who attended the movie showing. After we finished it, everyone was wiping away their tears and saying "wow." We've been inspired. Our next meetings are in January - we will start planning for this big event! We hope to see you then. Respectfully submitted, Lamisa Mustafa Watch the videos below to learn more and be inspired to never take your education for granted: Dear HRF community, This past Wednesday, November 9th, we have our third full Forum meeting. As it was the day after the elections, everyone was still digesting the results. We started off our meeting talking about the election and our thoughts. Our members expressed their reactions and how they feel going forward. Diana and Emily shared their experiences as first time voters, saying how they tried to keep up with the election process by watching the debates and reading articles because they knew they would vote. I tried to be a light. Personally, the election shocked me in a way I couldn't have predicted and I am still recovering. I came to school on Wednesday feeling very discouraged and depressed. But as they day went on and the HRF members shared their thoughts, I realized that our passion for our work should only be stronger. Our work is more important than ever. It is our job to continue to speak up for those whose voices aren't heard and for those whose rights are threatened. We also need to remember to respect opinions different from our own and to engage in peaceful conversations with people, to avoid inflicting more hate. I ask you to keep moving forward and fighting for what's right. As our theme was human rights issues in the USA, we talked about a problem that is actually quite difficult to discuss: human trafficking, also known as modern slavery. Human trafficking victims have no freedoms of their own and are considered the property of their traffickers. There are more than 20.9 million victims of this worldwide. Texas is the state in the US with the 2nd most reported cases of sex trafficking. This stuff happens VERY close to home and you should all be aware of it! In fact, a few weeks ago, Carrollton police caught a sex trafficking suspect at the InTown Suites less than 5 minutes away from our school! Here's the news article to that if you want to learn more: http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2016/10/26/police-shoot-kill-suspect-in-carrollton/ Please be aware of the signs of a potential victim so that you can report him/her to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline at 1-888-373-7888. Or text HELP to: BeFree (233733). Victims usually don't leave home or go around as they please; they may appear malnourished or show signs of physical/sexual abuse; and they may lack a knowledge of their whereabouts. Please know that you cannot just approach a potential victim because they will be subject to more violence if they try to escape their servitude. The safest thing to do is to report them. Also, you can be an informed and conscientious consumer. Maybe companies employ slaves to do their work. You can use http://www.slaveryfootprint.org/ or the Department of Labor’s List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor to learn more. We did a really cool activity at the end of our meeting where everyone wrote their favorite right or created their own right on scroll cutouts. A collage of our work can be found along with other pictures from the meeting below. Also, if you want a shirt, let us know now! Design can be found here. Respectfully submitted, Your fellow warrior, Lamisa Mustafa Hey, HRF Community! The second HRF meeting for the 2016-2017 school year was called to order on October 12, 2016 at 3:40 PM in Ms. Behnisch’s room, NW225. Our president Lamisa started off the meeting with an analysis of UNICEF’s month photo mystery challenge. We analyzed a picture of Syrian children getting water. This served as a wonderful introduction to a meeting that was centered around the Syrian refugee crisis and US relations with the Middle East. We were grateful to have Ms. Ledwon give us a presentation on her trip to Jordan this past summer. She and several other teachers in the States were granted a trip to Jordan through FullBright to observe how education differs between the Lone Star State and Jordan, and how the refugee crisis has affected Jordan and its education. Provided below is Ms. Ledwon’s PowerPoint of her experience: https://sway.com/qEEUG9E9HCQxkUnH A snippet of her presentation can be found at the bottom of this blog post. Ms. Ledwon showed us some very enlightening and thought-provoking videos. One was about the Syrian refugee crisis and how the West has responded to it. Another was a video created by Jordanian girls about gender equality. You can watch both videos below: After Ms. Ledwon was done presenting, the floor was open for any final thoughts and questions. Ms. Alsadi, a person native to the Middle Eastern region helped us understand the video we saw through her eyes. She explained that it is indeed a misconception to think that all Muslim girls are forced to stay home and cannot have aspirations. In fact, the Syrian girls are often the most educated and the schools in Syria are very advanced; therefore, we shouldn't think that refugees from Syria are uneducated. We are all more similar than we are different. Our next videoconference with Ukraine is this upcoming Thursday, October 20th. Please come prepared by doing some research: Ukraine Research Resources. Go here to see really cool pictures they sent us: Pictures from Ukraine We hope to see you at the Dallas Holocaust Museum & SMU field trip on Tuesday, October 25th and at our next monthly meeting on Wednesday, November 9th at 3:40 PM in NW225! Respectfully submitted, Kathy Pham Hey, HRF Community!
First off, these meeting minutes are kept monthly for every single HRF meeting so that a recap is recorded for those who are not able to attend! The first HRF meeting for the 2016-2017 school year was called to order on September 7, 2016 at 3:45 PM in Ms. Behnisch’s room, NW225. Our President Lamisa Mustafa proudly introduced the Forum: who we are and our brand new website (http://humanrightsforum.weebly.com)! We then took a quick tour of the website and then Lamisa handed it over our PR Director Steve Barboza to speak on Human Rights Dallas Summit and to show everyone the video he crafted. Our Cafe Chat Liaison Chisara Campbell then notified members on what is to look forward to in the near-future of HRF. To see our upcoming events, go to Calendar. Afterwards, Lamisa informed everyone of how to stay up to date with the Forum by providing all of our social media. To follow us on social media and to sign up for text reminders, go to Contact Us. Then, Secretary Kathy Pham spoke out of the recent acts of hate that occurred this past summer and encouraged everyone to take these moments of fear and sadness to move on with hope and optimism by challenging the Forum to do something for our community. For the rest of the meeting, everyone participated in a cutout activity conducted by Art Director Michelle Chau in which people were given cut-out humans to decorate and personalize with characteristics of themselves that no one can take away from them. Finally, with all of the cut-outs the Forum created a heart to symbolize unity. Throughout this activity, students signed up for the Dallas Holocaust Museum & SMU Field Trip by talking to our Treasurer Trong Tran. Members were allowed to leave whenever they needed to during the meeting. We hope to see you at our next HRF meeting on October 12, 2016 at 3:40 PM in NW225! Respectfully submitted, Kathy Pham |
AuthorKathy Pham, |