I dag ble det satt en ny verdensrekord på selveste operataket i Oslo. 935 mennesker stilte opp i røde ponchoer for å forme verdens største menneskelige Røde Kors.
- Vi hadde bestilt inn tusen røde ponchoer, men hadde ikke turt å håpe på at alle skulle være i bruk under rekordforsøket. Den gamle uoffisielle rekorden har vi hørt om var på 500 mennesker, og vi håpet jo at vi skulle få til litt flere her. Det å stå her nå å vite at så mange som 935 mennesker og en hund stilte opp for oss er helt utrolig, sier Ingrid Gauden som var initiativtaker fra Oslo Røde Kors.
Det menneskelige korset er oppstarten til Røde Kors sin årlige innsamlingsaksjon 8. mai. De innsamlede pengene vil gå til arbeidet deres i Norge og interasjonalt.
Ordføreren i Oslo, Fabian Stang, var også til stede. Han var imponert over alle medmenneskene som stilte opp på taket i Oslo.
Tortur strider mot menneskerettighetene, allikevel mener en av tre nordmenn at tortur er et legitimt middel for å skaffe informasjon som hindrer terrorhandlinger.
Tortur forekommer i over halvparten av alle land i verden. Det meste av torturen som skjer foregår i arrestasjoner eller på politistasjoner. Hvis det er greit at tortur brukes, hvem skal definere når det er riktig å bruke tortur? Hvis det er OK i situasjoner som kan forhindre terrorhandlinger, hvem definerer hva en terrorhandling er i det gitte landet? Og hvordan kan man vite at akkurat denne personen har informasjon om terrorhandlinger?
A new report published by Oxfam and Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, shows how brutal sexual violence can be.
After interviewing over 4000 Congolese rape-victims the report explains when, where and how women are being attacked, what makes them vulnerable to sexual violence,  and how the rape epidemic in South Kivu has evolved over the last five years.
The results show that women are being attacked regardless of age, marital status or ethnicity. They are attacked everyewhere; in the fields, when they are out collecting wood and even in their own homes. Most of the rapists are combatants, but it is getting increasingly common for civilians to rape other civilians.
For rape-victims their lives get extremely difficult due to stigma, shame and due to the fact that their husbands most probably will leave them. Victims also experience great psychological and physical harm.
Norwegian Church Aid works with sexual violence in Congo and has established various centres where victims can get help. This report shows how important their work is.
In the photo you see the international director at  Norwegian Church Aid, Anne Kristin Sydnes, talking to doctor Denis Mukwege at Punsi Hospital in Bukavu, Congo.
Sandaker School in Oslo is friends with a school in Ramallah, Palestine.This week they have pupils visiting from School of Hope, and today the whole school was gathered to honour their new friends. The Palestinian pupils had a dancing-performance, and everyone cheered out of joy.
Tomorrow, the pupils at Sandaker school will raise money for cultural projects at School of Hope. Some of the money will also go to a kinder-garden run by the school.
Head of the student-panel at Sandaker School plead for peace in Palestine where there has been an ongoing conflict since 1948.
Involve Yourself visited the school, and it was inspirational to experience the enthusiasm and eagerness to understand a new culture and fight for peace in Palestine.
Published at Friday, February 26, 2010 by Caroline
A new report from Iran Human Rights shows that over 400 people were executed in Iran in 2009. The reasons behind the executions are political disobedience, rape, drug trafficking and murder.
One of the authors of the report, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, claims that the executions are meant to spread fear amongst the Iranian people and has got nothing to do with fighting drug trafficking or crime.
Lots of Iranians have demonstrated post to the election June 2009. They do not think the election was fairly executed.
The right to life is a human right! Iranians need our support. Please tell us what YOU think about 400 Iranians being executed below.
Published at Monday, February 22, 2010 by Caroline
It is a human right to have access to education. One of UNs Millenium Development Goals is to secure that all children have the right to education by the year 2015.
However, a new report states that if we don’t work harder internationally towards this goal, we will end up with 56 million children withouth schooling in 2015. For many countries it has become harder to give their children education due to the financial crises many countries are experiencing.
Save the Children in Norway is trying to push the Norwegian government to take a leading role in working towards the Millenium Goal. On the 23rd of February an important meeting about this matter will be held in Ethiopia. Let us hope international politicans will come up with lots of great ideas on how to improve the situation.
What do you think about the fact that over 72 million children do not go to school?
Published at Wednesday, January 20, 2010 by Caroline
Google might stop their services in China due to Chinese attacks on Google’s system and their censorship. After investigating the attack Google have reasons to believe that they have tried to get information about Google-acconts linked to Human Rights activists. Below is an abstract from their blog:
These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.It is great news that big companies such as Google takes responsibility and joins our fight for human rights. Their decision will have great impact on the corporate social responsibility of other companies – and not least on nations such as China which stops people from having free speech.
Published at Tuesday, January 19, 2010 by Caroline
1. Katzenjammer with 719 votes
2. Breed with 701 votes
3. Inception with 352 votes
We are glad to announce the winners of our YouTube Music-festival, Give Your Live, which took place on the 14th December 2009. Our audience have given their votes and Katzenjammer, Breed and Inception are the winners.
The prize is historical. Their songs will be part of the new Golden Disc which will contain statements about what youth think about human right’s violations and how they want the world to be. The disc will be historical and will be sent out to space – just like the old one!
Cheating Unfortunately we experienced cheating during the vote. This was investigated and we managed to find back to the original results.
After the YouTube-festival on the 14th December 2009, we arranged a voting-contest! Amongst the 55 band which gave their live contribution to the festival, 3 have the chance to get their songs onto the New Golden Record.
At the end of the contest which ended on the 31st December, we have reasons to believe that there have been people cheating. Each person (ip-address) is only allowed to give one vote to each band. However, a couple of bands suddenly got extremely many votes during a short amount of time.
It is very important for Involve Yourself that this is a fair competition. We are currently investigating what has happened, and will get back to you regarding the final results.
Thanks to all the bands which gave their “live” to the first ever YouTube-festival.
Published at Wednesday, January 6, 2010 by Caroline
After continous campaigning The Norwegian Student Board has decided not to renew another deal with Coca-Cola. This means there will be n Coca-Cola products in Norwegian universities or in schools of higher education.
The board has based their decision on price compared to other suppliers of soft-drinks, but also on ethical grounds. Campaigns over the last two years shows that Coca-Cola factories in India causes a reduction in water for the locals as well as water-pollution.
India Recourse Center welcomes the students’ decision and states they give out an important message to other educational institutions.
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