Amnesty International

According to the Amnesty International Website:


Human rights education is both a lens through which to observe the world and a methodology for teaching and leading others.

Amnesty International believes that learning about human rights is the first step toward respecting, promoting and defending those rights.

Why would we want the shield Burke County's children from this lesson?

Amnesty International's initial response to banning The Kite Runner:

You will see from our websiite (www.amnestyusa.org -- click on WHAT YOU CAN DO, then on EDUCATE) that Amnesty International USA has used this book/movie as a way to talk to young people about human rights issues.

Betsy, my contact at Amnesty International, has forwarded our issue to their human rights education department.



Something interesting from the curriculum guide:


“Hope is knowing that people, like kites, are made to be lifted up.”
- Afghanistan Relief Organization

Kite-running (Gudiparan Bazi) has been a favorite pastime in Afghanistan for the last 100 years, but there are few on the streets of Kabul that can forget the terror of living under the Taliban regime for so many years. Under Taliban rule, if you were caught with a kite, many times you would be beaten and the spool would be destroyed. However, since the fall of the Taliban regime, kite-running has again resurfaced tenfold.

Our children have so many freedoms that other children are denied. They need to know that many children go to bed hungry, get beaten for standing in the wrong place, and suffer horribly simply because of where they were born. I bet most of our kids would never dream that there are places where they might be beaten for the simple act of flying a kite. How can our children appreciate what they have or grow up to help change the world if we don't let them learn about what the world is really like?