Group Newsletter May 2018

Welcome to the latest newsletter.
The next meeting  is on Thursday 10th May 2018, 7.30pm  at Moordown Community Centre. On the agenda  –  Review of campaigns; Feedback on Photography Exhibition, Bourne Free, Summer events, letter writing….

Wareham Street Collection

Is this Saturday! After quite a low turnout and return from the Bournemouth and Christchurch collections in 2017, this year we are just going to focus on Wareham (where traditionally they have been very generous.) If you wish to help please let us know, by replying to this newsletter, rather than just turning up.

Wareham Street Collection (High Street)  Saturday (am only) 12th May 2018
The Spring Quiz has been and gone. A highly competitive event it ended on a tie breaker. David & Rosemary Brown set some fiendish questions, as ever. We learnt, among other facts, that Tasmania is pretty big (90,758 km²) – although Australia’s smallest state is still bigger than more than half the countries in the world! So actually bigger than Belgium (30,528 km²) and Wales (20,735 km²) put together and also bigger than Ireland (84,421 km²).

We raised £240, so thanks to everyone who came along and joined in. Thanks to Lucy Freeman for running the raffle and thanks, as ever, to the Brunswick for letting us use their fantastic function room for free.

But special thanks to David & Rosemary. After 20 years of running quiz nights for our group they have called time and this will be their last. For quite a while they were doing two quizzes a year, so a conservative estimate is they have raised over £5000 for Amnesty International. We will miss them.

Does anyone fancy taking over – either setting a quiz or hosting (or both)? David Rogers and Sally Hawksworth have been running the Autumn quiz for a few years now, but it’s a nice opportunity for others to get involved. Quiz nights are a significant source of revenue for the group – and far more fun than street collections.

South America Newsletter

The May edition of the South America Regional Newsletter is now on the blog. Our group has focused on South America since its inception, which is also reflected in our case file – see below. The (now) 2 volunteers who run the network for AIUK – and produce the newsletter – do a huge amount of work on our behalf. If nothing else it gives a chilling overview of the state of human rights in one continent.

SAM (not his real name)
Sam has friends, housing, and job prospects waiting for him in the US. He fled Iraq in 2014 after he and his family were threatened because of his work as an interpreter with the US Army during the Iraq War. The US promised him refuge but now they won’t let him in. He is stranded in Egypt and at risk of being sent back to danger in Iraq.

Seeking safety is a human right. Will you tell the Trump administration to keep its promise to help Sam and his family?
Please sign the petition here
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions/urgent-help-iraqi-refugee-danger

Library Photography Exhibition

Has also been and gone.  We had a good start, with Bournemouth’s Mayor, Councillor Lawrence Williams, and the Mayoress of Bournemouth opening the event at Bournemouth Library.  We will discuss how successful this was at our meeting on Thursday.

If anyone attended the exhibition, could you give us feedback, a.s.a.p. Please just reply to this newsletter. The exhibition took several hours of meetings to organise, and it cost £90 to hire the library space for the month.  So feedback (good and bad) will help us decide if such events are worth holding. Or if you didn’t attend, any particular reason why not?

Hopefully more feedback next month. But for now thanks to Lucy Pope for chairing the organising sub committee and keeping everything on track. And thanks to Tom Wilson for compiling the video that was running throughout the exhibition.

Jorge Lázaro Samba Nunes dos Santos

A case file is an AI action that focus on one individual or situation. This long term narrow focus ensures a constant pressure on authorities to take action. We have been writing to authorities in Bahia State, Brazil on behalf of Jorge Lázaro, for about two years now.

Two of his seven children have been murdered. Jorge Lázaro has been under huge pressure since the first murder in 2008 : he is seeking justice for the killings of his sons, trying to keep himself and his family safe, and providing necessary minimum living conditions such as a home and food.
To add to the tragedy of two murdered sons, on July 10th 2016 Jorge’s youngest son, Denilson was shot whilst walking home.  Luckily Denilson survived and recovered.
There are downloadable letters you can adapt on our take action page.There is also a link so you can send him a message of support via AIUK.