{"id":24742,"date":"2019-09-20T17:43:02","date_gmt":"2019-09-20T21:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24742"},"modified":"2019-09-20T17:43:12","modified_gmt":"2019-09-20T21:43:12","slug":"a-simple-letter-can-make-a-huge-difference-with-local-amnesty-chapter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/a-simple-letter-can-make-a-huge-difference-with-local-amnesty-chapter\/","title":{"rendered":"A simple letter can make a huge difference with local Amnesty chapter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Kinjal Dagli Shah<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Aurora\/Newmarket Amnesty Group came together at the\nAurora Public Library on Saturday to host their Write for Rights letter-writing\nevent as part of the Library\u2019s ongoing One Book One Aurora program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the background, children enjoyed story time, paper\norigami and button-making as the weekend visitors learned more about Amnesty\nInternational and how a simple letter can make a huge difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heather Cooper, who has been a member of the local\nchapter since it started in 2006, was running the event along with other\nmembers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis year, the library has chosen Sweetness in the\nBelly, a book that ties in with human rights, so they offered us a chance to\npartner with them today. As a group, we don\u2019t focus on fundraising but on\nmaking people aware of Amnesty International and what it does,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amnesty International is a global movement of more than seven\nmillion people in over 150 countries who campaign to end abuses of human rights\nand is independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or\nreligion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jason, a resident of Vaughan and a member of the local\nchapter, was at the event with three of his four children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA surprising number of people haven\u2019t heard of Amnesty\nInternational and are content being here in Canada without realizing what is\nhappening in the outside world. At Amnesty, one of the things we work on is\nUrgent Action cases where someone is facing an unfair trial, are being\ninterrogated or have gone missing. Each month, we write letters to the\nauthorities in question and say, politely, that we are from Canada and we have\nheard from research what is happening to a particular individual in jail. We\nask the authorities to investigate and we are told that the most effective\nmeans of persuading government officials is the handwritten letter,\u201d explained\nJason, whose work as a scientist took him to various parts of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDuring my travel, I was forced to come face-to-face with\nthe fact that other countries don\u2019t have the same laws and standards as Canada\nand some of my colleagues don\u2019t have the same hopes and dreams that I do. I had\na few close calls with customs in different countries and realized that things\ncan escalate pretty quickly. I felt I had an obligation to try to do something\nabout it and many years later, I found the Amnesty group in Aurora.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While his 11-year-old daughter Mary guided the little\nones in button-making, his son Andrew was helping make origami cranes and\ndoves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI volunteered with my dad last year at the One Book, One\nAurora event and I think it\u2019s important to help people in jail because they\nshould have freedom too. It\u2019s not fun to be trapped in prison,\u201d said Mary, who usually\nspends her weekend morning running with her family but chose to volunteer for\nthe Amnesty group on this particular Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amnesty International has a program called Lifesaver for\nyouth ages 9-14 where they too are able to write simple letters. \u201cJason has a\nyoung family so he integrated the children\u2019s programming along with the\nletter-writing event today,\u201d said Heather. Aurora resident Elmer Berbudez\nbrought his kids for the StoryTime at the library and took home some\ninformation about Amnesty International. \u201cMy kids participated in the activity\nand a lady here oriented me on how the organization works. I was happy to learn\nabout it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a win-win Saturday for all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Aurora\/Newmarket Amnesty group meets the second\nThursday of the month from 7 to 8.30 pm in the Rectory House behind the Trinity\nAnglican Church in Aurora. Anyone is welcome to attend.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Aurora\/Newmarket Amnesty Group came together at the Aurora Public Library on Saturday to host their Write for Rights letter-writing event as part of the Library\u2019s ongoing One Book One Aurora program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/2019-09-19-23.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6r4","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-20 10:49:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}