Aim’s mission
Aims’ actions and activities
A personal perspective
Why everyone should consider AIMS
Amnesty International is world’s most widespread human rights organization, a global movement of more than 7 million people spread over 150 countries. Action is taken for justice, freedom, human dignity and equality.
Amnesty International Maastricht Students (AIMS) is a group of committed students who all want to emphasize the importance of human rights. This article is a wonderful opportunity to raise awareness on behalf of this organization and that motivated me to spread the word.
Aims’ mission
Amnesty International focuses on various importantmatters, such as human rights in general, freedom of expression, discrimination, the death penalty, refugees and migrants. As Amnesty International is a world-wide organization with a global perspective on all of its values, AIMS’ mission is to take those values and deploy them with a more local scope of focus. AIMS’ goal is not only to raise awareness about human rights topics, but also to ensure that all individuals feel welcome to participate in actions and activities that take place in Maastricht.
Aims’ actions and activities
AIMS tries in an innovative way to organize various events that are widely accessible.
It is especially important to offer a variety of actions and activities so that a wide audience is encouraged to participate. To this day, AIMS is trying to come up with new ideas to bring different generations and nationalities together. From a local perspective it is wonderful that these initiatives exist and therefore it is worth sharing their actions and activities.
AIMS actively encourages local public to engage in events related to activism. Examples of these events are positive protests, open mic events, writing marathons and information markets. There are also cultural evenings where a certain country is introduced with its specific cultural traits like its food and music. For the average movie lover, seeing one of the ‘Movies that matter’, which will be played in the Lumière in Maastricht, is an absolute must. After the movies, AIMS organizes debates related to the topics discussed in the movies.
For the active members, AIMS hosts a meeting at the law faculty in Maastricht every Wednesday at 18:30. Important human rights related issues will be introduced during these meetings and a discussion will follow.
A personal perspective
During my interview with one of AIMS’ board members, Tommy, I asked him why he decided to participate in AIMS. The reason why Tommy decided to participate in AIMS was because he used to be a political refugee himself. He fled from Iran to Germany in 2010, where Tommy spent his time in a refugee camp. There he was able to meet individuals with experiences similar to his, from the other refugees he was able to gain various different perspectives of what their experiences as a refugee were like and he was truly shocked with what he heard.
Tommy was asked how other individuals can be motivated to participate in AIMS’ initiatives. According to him, AIMS isn’t just trying to recruit individuals to participate in their activities, but instead they aim at raising our awareness about the very recent relevant human rights topics.
Why everyone should consider AIMS
AIMS is an organization whose ideologies everyone, but especially we as the current generation and as students in an international environment should try to implement into our daily lives. The importance of serious current events where individuals are being discriminated on the basis of their race, sex, sexual orientation, religion or weight, should be considered and treated with high importance. Having an organization that devotes its time and efforts into raising awareness about a number of different human rights related issues, significantly helps all of us to realize what goes on around us and what must be done to make our environment suitable for the majority.
Written by Helene Godding