MU has added an Amnesty International chapter on campus. The group, Mizzou Amnesty, has its first meeting this week.
“Amnesty International is the most well-known and historic human rights organization in the world,” according to Mizzou Amnesty’s Facebook page.
The group is headed by president Jaime Henry-White, who has worked with Amnesty International before.
“I’m a transfer student, so I originally got involved with Amnesty at my first college,” she said. When Henry-White came to MU, she discovered there was not an Amnesty International chapter on campus.
“I started looking into other avenues for how I could get involved,” she said.
Henry-White was hired by Amnesty International as the Missouri “student area coordinator.” She serves as a liaison between the Amnesty International office and all student chapters in Missouri.
MU also has a history with Amnesty International.
“There used to be a Mizzou organization here and that fell through,” Henry-White said. She talked to her friend Trevor Peters about this, who had his own Amnesty experience.
“I helped start the Amnesty International chapter in my high school,” Mizzou Amnesty Vice President Peters said.
Together, Peters and Henry-White worked to start MU’s chapter.
“It ended up being a really easy process,” Henry-White said of starting the organization.
The group will participate in human rights advocacy activities, such as letter-writing campaigns to end unjust imprisonment.
“(Amnesty International) gets people aware of the other things that are happening outside of the little bubble that is Mizzou,” Peters said.
He said he looks forward to being able to cover controversial issues he had to shy away from in high school.
“It was kind of tough in high school because of the politics and not being able to express opinions,” he said.
Henry-White hopes to bring awareness of human rights violations to students’ attention.
“To me, human rights cover all bases, so everyone is affected by human rights,” she said. “One way or another we are going to encounter some sort of violation in our lives.”
Another way Mizzou Amnesty hopes to bring awareness of human rights violations to campus is through documentary film screenings.
““It’s really hard to get a good idea about it and I think film will be a good way to get an idea of what’s going on in the world where we can’t see it,” Henry-White said.
Peters said hopes to get as many students involved in the organization as possible and hopes to see high attendance at the first meeting.
“I would be just happy for the organization to be successful and to have people come to the meetings,” he said. “Amnesty International is a huge organization worldwide. We’ll be doing good things. I would be happy just to know that other people care and we have other people that can help us.”
Including Henry-White and Peters, there are also two other officers involved with Mizzou Amnesty. All four of the officers can be contacted on the group’s Facebook page and Henry-White said she hopes students take advantage of that.
“We’re all really passionate about it and really excited,” she said.