Juan Diego participates In Human Rights Day videoconference

Intermountain Catholic

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A packed room of students listened and posed questions to two speakers during the Human Rights Day videoconference. They were also able to join in on a simultaneous blog site.

DRAPER — In honor of the United Nations Human Rights Day, seniors at Juan Diego Catholic High School participated in a worldwide videoconference with schools from Canada and the United Kingdom on Dec. 10.

The videoconference was part of the Face to Faith program, which Juan Diego recently instituted for some of its seniors. Face to Faith allows students from around the world to communicate with one another on a safe website.

Some of these videoconferences deal specifically with social justice or faith issues, others simply provide a forum where students from different places in the world can connect.

The videoconference was the first of its kind for Juan Diego. Students gathered in a computer lab at the school while facilitator Jo Malone from the United Kingdom went through a technology check with all the schools involved.

The conference began at 8 a.m. in Utah. Other participants were Chinguacousy Secondary School in Toronto, Canada; Hackney Free and Parochial School in London, England; Westhoughton High School in Bolton, England and Westmount Charter School in Calgary, Canada.

Because this was a special conference for Human Rights Day, guest speakers were Elyse Brazel, broadcasting from Toronto, and David Washer, broadcasting from Yale University, each of whom spoke of their personal experience with human rights. Brazel has worked extensively in Canada with refugees from Rwanda, helping them get their feet on the ground as they make a new start in a new place. Washer has headed up several student groups in the United States to fight human trafficking and to promote protection of women’s rights.

Students from each school were then allowed to ask questions of the guests. Malone then posed the question: "What can you (students) do to promote human rights?"

Juan Diego’s Morgan Hesleph talked about writing letters to prisoners and the Human Rights International Club, which hosts a film festival promoting human rights every year.

"It was interesting to hear how active people are around the world in human rights," said Juan Diego senior Carly Mehmen.

"I thought it was very enlightening to participate in the conference," said Juan Diego senior Eric Doughty. "I thought people had very interesting perspectives."

Juan Diego officials hopes to continue this program and have more videoconferences in the future. Juan Diego moderator Christine Petrone, who also chairs the theology department, said videoconferences like these would usually involve students from only two schools having a dialogue with one another, but because of the importance of the day there were five schools invited this time.

"We look forward to the future when the students can interact a lot more," Petrone said.