<p>I'm starting one soon, and I have a basic format of what I'm going to do. But it's just too reptitive. It's basically going to be me telling the students what's going on around the world, have them fundraise a little bit to pay the 50 dollars for Darfur, and maybe do a little extra things (watch a movie). But that's all I can think of. I have nothing else.</p>
<p>Think of ways you can do activism that reaches out to the whole school community, not just club members - tabling, petitions, movie nights, benefit concerts. Our school Amnesty does a week of activism to bring attention to different issues, culminating in a "Jam for Peace" that highlights student bands.</p>
<p>If there are any organizations in your area that do human rights work, talk to them and see if there's any way you can help them, or if you could bring a group of students on a field trip to check out the work that they do.</p>
<p>If you have student organizations that deal with diversity (a multicultural/international club or a gay-straight alliance), see if they'd be interested in doing a joint event.</p>
<p>^^^
agreed.</p>
<p>im not in an "amnesty" club, but i am in student government and leadership. I can tell you that we really worked a lot for Darfur last year. Here are some ideas of what we did. 1st, we made poster boards and informed the leadership classes themselves. Then we spread the word doing 5 min presentations from class to class with permission from that teacher ofcourse. We brought around boxes and asked for any donations that would help. Then we created a school banner and the principal was all for hanging it up in the lobby. Also we ordered "Fight For Darfur" Pins and sold them to other students, that was a big hit also. These may be ideas you want to discuss in your "club"</p>
<p>don't do Darfur. at my school we focus on fair trade and do some pretty cool stuff. if you want i'll pm you some of the things we did this year. they were all incredibly good ideas so i don't want to post them and have some lame-EC-hungry kid stealing them. you seem cool so just let me know if you are interested.</p>
<p>Thanks, a lot guys, I appreciate it a lot. And thank-you Newjack for the offer, I'll take it into consideration if I need any help.</p>
<p>our school has a week for which every club can do it's thing. during amnesty's spotlight week they sold buttons, and t-shirts, and since i go to a private school, free dress passes. </p>
<p>we did human trafficking and our main foyer was decorated as a road with random signs with stats and "toll booths". </p>
<p>we also had school-wide movies shown during lunch and had forums afterwards. </p>
<p>we also have a community service club that focuses on one issue during valentine's week -- it's called "one love" .. last year they did aids, this year darfur.</p>
<p>We don't have an Amnesty International club (closest is Model UN, and that's completely different), but I would suggest not doing anything cliche. Darfur is so overdone. Some of Newjack's ideas may be pretty good; free trade sounds decent, but you can also look for more urgent and important yet ignored situations.</p>
<p>Write letters to the governments of different countries! That's what our club does. Your sponsor can find new "actions" each week on the Amnesty International web site (there's a section for high school clubs, I think)...our club's motto is "Write a letter, save a life!" =D</p>
<p>Most of our fundraising money goes towards postage, etc. (mailing internationally can get expensive).</p>
<p>Have a "Day of Action" specifically aimed at certain injustices in the world, there are many to choose from on Amnesty website. Get a thing a petition off their website. Publicize this day with posters, and on that day, have tables in the cafateria where you have people sign the petitions, and if they do, they get a cookie. Raises awareness, attracts a lot of people(the cookies), plus you can send a bunch of signatures on your petitions to Congressmen, or whoever your petition is to.
There is a yearly conference, you should probably organize some people in your school to go to that, it's great.
Have a benefit concert, we call ours "jamnesty", feature local bands/singers from your school, but show videos also found on Amnesty website in between, have petitions there, do t-shirts. Money could go to club or to Amnesty, or any other place.
You could have house parties showing videos as well, this stuff can be found on the website also.
Finally, every once in a while have a letter writing day, usually after school, provide food, there are many resources for the letter writing on the Amnesty website.
These are just some things we do at our school. There are also a lot of resources to help you on the Amnesty website, soyou might want to look their and sign up for updates.
Oh, and sorry if this was too long or repeated other ideas previously mentioned, didn't mean to.</p>
<p>Try focusing on North Korea. There’s a cool group called LiNK ( Liberation in North Korea) that travels around the US giving presentations about the human rights crises there. They have come twice to present to our school and it really helps raise awareness.
Another thing is the ACLU ( American Civil Liberties Union). It’s a way to focus on issues within your community like racial profiling, freedom of speech, etc. Our AI chapter has teamed up with them. Try contacting your local chapter.
Other ideas are: a school wide letter writing contest, you can get Holocaust survivors to speak, a table at a state/local fair. Our AI club started in 09-10 and it was a rocky start, but you’ll find ways to connect/reach out. Even if you can’t “change the world”, you can always increase awareness!</p>