Ask Barbara Lee to Co-Sponsor the Congo Conflict Minerals Trade Act

The conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo is the deadliest conflict since World War II and over 5.4 million people have died. The violence is being fueled by the trade in conflict minerals: the armed groups earn money to continue their fighting by selling minerals that end up in electronic devices like cell phones and laptops (they earned an estimated $185 million from this trade in 2008 alone). One thing we can do to stop the violence in the Congo is to ask our representatives to support the Congo Conflict Minerals Trade Act, which would work to ensure that the trade in minerals stops financing armed groups in the Congo.

Read more about the bill here.

Ask Barbara Lee to co-sponsor the Congo Conflict Minerals Trade Act by calling her office at (202) 225-2661.

If Barbara Lee isn't your representative, you can contact your representative at http://www.house.gov.

You can also email your representatives at http://www2.americanprogress.org/t/1659/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6281.

(If you get a response from Lee's office, let me know at ehopper@berkeley.edu!)

Recap: Hometown Shakedown

Anaamika, Claire, Rachel and I went to Nancy Pelosi's office in San Francisco to support Invisible Children's lobbying efforts for the Lord Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009, which would commit President Obama to develop strategies to stop Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA, and to support recovery efforts in northern Uganda and other LRA-affected areas.

We unfortunately could not meet directly with Speaker Pelosi, but we did have a meeting with the Deputy Director. She was extremely nice, receptive, and engaged. The meeting was a success! I thought the lobby meeting was extremely effective, especially with firsthand account of how things are in Uganda. Specific examples of how the organization dealt with the issue at hand were extremely powerful and convincing.

A few points to keep in mind:

• When people saw our sign about stopping Joseph Kony and so forth, they were genuinely interested. A lot of people stopped by and talked to us.
• The Deputy Director was impressed that so many people came in support of the lobby meeting.
• Even though people seem apathetic, there are people who care.

To take action, write a letter to Senator Feinstein to co-sponsor this legislation. Here's a sample letter. If you want to get more involved with Invisible Children at Berkeley, contact Brittany at bdeyan@invisiblechildren.com.

Hometown Shakedown: Get Nancy Pelosi to sponsor the LRA Disarmament Bill!

Here's the deal: Invisible Children, an organization raising awareness about child soldiers and the conflict in Uganda, have helped to promote the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament & Northern Uganda Recovery Act, which would recommit the United States to ending the LRA's reign of terror and rebuilding Ugandan communities. Backed by Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Sam Brownback (R-KS), the bill currently has the formal support of 27 Members of the Senate and 125 Members of the House. Invisible Children is sponsoring a "Hometown Shakedown" to get 50% of the House and Senate to co-sponsor the bill by the end of this year. In our district, both Barbara Lee and Barbara Boxer have co-sponsored the legislation, but Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi have not.

Join Amnesty International on Wednesday, November 18 as we trek across the Bay, join with other human rights activists, and ask Nancy Pelosi to support this important (and unprecedented) legislation! Afterward, we'll grab ice cream or something in SF!

Meet at the Downtown Berkeley BART station at 1:45. The cost roundtrip will be $7.30... If this isn't doable, please let us know and we'll arrange for a group to use the bus.

Check out the Facebook event, and invite friends! Contact ucbamnesty@gmail.com with any questions or concerns.

Prisoner of Conscience: Shi Tao

You send an email. The next day, the government knocks on your door. End result? 10 years in prison.

Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist, was arrested and convicted to serve 10 years in prison for using his Yahoo email account to send information about a government order that dictated the media to downplay the upcoming 15th anniversary of crackdown on the pro-democracy activists. He was charged and convicted of "illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities."

This is an alarming case, which shows how the Chinese government uses the Internet to crack down on its dissidents.

Urge Yahoo! to stop violating human rights! Make a phone call. Here are the directions.

Write to the Prime Minister and let your voice be heard! Here's how.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Advocacy This Week: Maternal Health

First Action: In Nicaragua, there is a complete ban on abortion. This means that even when the woman's life is in danger, abortion is illegal.

Amnesty International has completed a report on the origins, causes, and effects of the complete ban of abortion in Nicaragua. Click here to read more about this issue.

Call on Nicaragua to repeal the criminalization of abortion in all cases by signing a letter here. If you have more time, copy (or write) the letter in Spanish.

Second Action: Maternal healthcare access must be improved in Peru; countless indigenous women have died due to lack of access to care and more. Watch this video; it's about 5 minutes long, but very informative:

Urge President Garcia to improve access to maternal healthcare and more (providing better sexual and maternal health information, funding programs concerning maternal healthcare, etc). Either sign this letter (takes less than a minute) or write a letter of your own!

If you have any suggestions or preferences for advocacy next week or in the future, please let us know! :)

Hunger Banquet

Join Amnesty International, Cal Dining, and Unit 3 at our upcoming Hunger Banquet for a taste of global poverty, inequality, and hunger!

Thursday, November 12 at 5:00 p.m.
Café 3 (Unit 3 Dining Commons)

Today, we live in a world of massive disparities. More than 2.5 billion people live in poverty, including over 39 million Americans. Over 1 billion suffer from chronic hunger. Every 3.4 seconds a child dies from hunger or preventable diseases... That's 25,000 children per day.

However, the world produces enough food to feed everyone. Farmers harvest enough grain alone to provide every human being on the planet with 3,500 calories a day.

This global hunger epidemic isn't about too many people and too little food. Hunger is about power, inequality, and limited access to resources.

Join Amnesty International and Unit 3 for an interactive evening highlighting the global crisis of food distribution disparities and what YOU can do about it. Check out the Facebook event, and invite your friends!

FREE Admission * FREE Food * FREE Knowledge

Student Perspectives on Homelessness in Berkeley Survey

Please take our Student Perspectives on Homelessness in Berkeley Survey!

One of our chapter's goals this year is to combat the misconceptions, generalizations, and conventional unawareness of students and community members regarding Berkeley's homeless population. We are developing a long-term project in which we hope to engage with different parties involved in or impacted by the issue of homelessness in Berkeley (i.e. students, community members, shelters, law enforcement, medical clinics, and, most importantly, the homeless themselves) in order to gather information that can later be shared with the larger University community.

We are conducting this survey to get a general idea about student perspectives on homelessness in Berkeley. Your input will serve as an important building block for our project. The survey includes five questions regarding how you view homelessness in Berkeley, and shouldn't take more than a few minutes.

Check out the Facebook event, and invite your friends!

We truly appreciate your participation! If you have any questions or comments regarding the survey or our project, please email ucbamnesty@gmail.com.

BUDGET CUTS INFO

There is a Town Hall Meeting this Thursday at 7:30 PM in the Pauley Ballroom:

You will have the chance to ask the Chancellor about the Budget Cuts.

There is a central site with information here:

http://berkeleycuts.org/

SOME GREAT INFO TO READ/ SKIM:

My Geography 123 Professor, Gillian Hart, is very passionate about the issue.

She recommended that we all read what former Berkeley Professor Charles Schwartz has 

to say about the issue. He is retired but has spent the past few years researching the subject

and has come up with some shocking and quite distressing data:

http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~schwrtz/

HIS LATEST LECTURE ON THE SUBJECT:

http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~schwrtz/Part_20.html

(Part of his series called "Financing the University")

LOOOVE,

Claire Sarraillé

Reproductive/Abortion Rights Info

Sources used in today’s Education section at the General Meeting:

Amnesty’s policy on sexual and reproductive rights: http://www.amnesty.org/en/campaigns/stop-violence-against-women/issues/implementation-existing-laws/srr

Amnesty’s policy on abortion: http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17378

Amnesty’s report on the situation in Nicaragua: http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/nicaragua-complete-ban-abortion-violates-torture-convention-20090515

Research paper on the reasons why U.S women have abortions: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/psrh/full/3711005.pdf

Research paper on the reasons why women from 27 different countries have abortions: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/2411798.html

Abortion laws map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AbortionLawsMap-NoLegend.png

WHO report on reproductive health: http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/en/

The Proclamation of Tehran (see number 16): http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/l2ptichr.htm