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Enviar a un amigoWelcome to the third audio segment of Understanding Advocates! This interview is with Kristi Rudelius-Palmer from the Human Rights Center at the University of Minnesota Law School. She focuses on human rights education and the personal and ethical challenges of Human Rights work.
This summer at New Tactics I'm doing a project to get to know human rights advocates, particularly in the twin cities area, a little bit better. It's not always an easy job, and the diversity of individuals that devote their time to struggling for human rights is incredible; the diversity of how they do that is no less impressive. We want to know, what makes them tick? How did they get here? How do they do their work, and what makes them keep at it? I have been conducting interviews with activists in the twin cities area, and now we want to share their insights with you. So listen in, and get to know your human rights community, they've got a lot to offer.
Thus far we've heard from Joy Nelson from the Resource Center for the Americas (on some Latin American and immigrant issues), and Mary Ellingen from The Advocates for Human Rights (geared towards women's issues).
Kristi Rudelius-Palmer, featured here, is Co-Director of the University of Minnesota Law School's Human Rights Center. In this interview she tackles some really tough questions that face all human rights advocates: personal motivations and challenges, burnout, ethical accountability, the importance and difficulty of collaboration, and more. She also has some great tactics and knowledge to share about human rights education.
Q: What do you and your organization work to achieve in Human Rights?
Q: How do you see yourself, as an individual or an organization, fitting into the wider HR activism community?
Q: This can be a difficult job, and as you said you don't take on specific clients so sometimes you may not see the effects of your work in a very concrete way. What motivates you to keep doing the work that you're doing here at the Human Rghts Center (HRC)?
Q: What are some specific goals that you are working to achieve right now? Short term or long term.
Q: You've spoken a bit about what you guys do, focusing in particular in training and education, is there anything else you'd like to say about the tactics you use here at the HRC? Maybe why you've chosen them, or what you've found to be the most useful tactics.
Tactics Continued: On HRC's "Taking my Human Rights Temperature" Survey and its use.
Q: You've touched a little bit on some of your personal challenges in this field, things like burnout. Are there any other personal challenges you'd like to share? Or challenges that you or your organization face in reaching your goals?
Q: In Human Rights you run into a lot of ethical questions, particularly relating to communities and cultural differences. You do work in education, do you have any examples of ethical questions you've run into? You talked a little bit about that "reflection" on one's own work, and I think it can be easy to make a group of friends that supports yourself, but how do you handle people that disagree with you or your work? How do you take in that information and those viewpoints?
Continuing to discuss ethics, Kristi touches on the ethics and challenges of Human Rights Leadership roles.
An insightful comment on balancing creative innovations and being realistic in Human Rights work.
A little more on ethics, Kristi touches on the difficulty of doing human rights work as a paying job.
Q: Are you familiar with CVT's New Tactics Project? Have you used it? Tell us about your experience.
Q: Is there anything else you'd like to tell us about your work, your activism? Anything I didn't ask about?
Thanks Kristi! We all really appreciate your honest sharing and thoughtful comments.
