Celebrating the declaration of human rights

Ryan Taplin/Metro Halifax

Hisham Hamdan, 11, drums his way through the Common Room at the Dartmouth Sportsplex as other YMCA youth drummers entertain the crowd at an International Human Rights Day event yesterday.

EDANA ROBITAILLE, METRO HALIFAX

December 11, 2008 5:00 a.m.

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People came together all over the city yesterday to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Eleven-year-old Logan MacGilivray from Bedford got an award for his documentary film Listen to the Children, about children in Sierra Leone. He helped raise money to build seven schools in that country.

The other award recipient was reachAbility, an organization that works with people with disabilities.

“We think of disabilities as being ‘special’ too much,” said Tova Sherman, the organization’s president, “Special is not always a good thing. We’re just trying to equalize the playing field.”

The event was also used to raise awareness about pending issues. Cheryl Maloney, a lecturer on Mi’Kmaq studies at Cape Breton University, said she is disappointed that Canada didn’t sign the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

At CompuCollege in Halifax, public relations students teamed up with Amnesty International for a letter-writing event.

Student Abbie Betts chose to help because she believes in making a difference for victims of rights abuse.

“It’s something that stood out because it’s worldwide. There are cases in Canada, so it even affects us,” Betts said, referring to a land-claims case in British Columbia. She said some people actually wrote 16 letters, one for each of Amnesty’s cases.

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