Masterclass HURICAP

On the 9th of March some students from the Faculty Association EOS from the VU came over for a Masterclass. Together with our senior officer HURICAP, Wim de Regt, we discussed the human rights capacity building programme. This programme offers trainings for local human rights organizations and defenders, mainly in Africa and the Middle East. For this, we paid specifically attention on the Amnesty report: ‘Cameroon’s secret torture chambers’. After hearing about this shocking report, we put the students to work. In small groups they had to re-enact an interview like the ones from the training. Curious about how that went? You can read the story of one of the attendees, Max Koningen.

I am a third-year student Public Administration and Organizational Sciences student from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Faculty Association EOS, which I am a part of, organized a Masterclass together with Amnesty as part of their career week. I was very interested in this masterclass because I wanted to know more about the work of Amnesty. It is a well-known organization but I didn’t really know a lot about their projects. The group we came with varied a lot from Communicational Science students to Anthropologists, from first year students to master students. I think the Masterclass was very well organized, and I really enjoyed it! The first part of the Masterclass did not only answer my questions about Amnesty in general, but also provided insights in several actions of Amnesty, for example the yearly writing action. In the second part we talked about the torturing going on in Cameroon, where the Cameroonian authorities are violating human laws in their war with Boko Haram. We also had a case study about how difficult it is to do research on these mis standings and how you convince eyewitnesses to trust you and tell their story. This really put me right in the shoes of an Amnesty worker. Once again, I really enjoyed the day and know a lot more about Amnesty and their projects. I would also definitely consider signing up for another Masterclass

Want to see what masterclasses are coming up? Find out here!

Do you want to read more about the programme ‘HURICAP’ and the report? Check it out.

Read more about our human rights capacity building programme.