Amnesty Board Meeting Follow Up Email **RESPONSES REQUIRED**

[Ayesha Islam]

Salam guys! I know some of us had to leave the meeting early, some of missed the beginning of the meeting, and some just may have forgotten a few things discussed, so here's basically what we discussed on Wednesday. 

Club Fair

Board members at our table: Saima, Sumaiya, Ayesha, Tabara (Tahirah when she's not at Cancer Society)

       * We'll alternate so that one of us will be walking around with an Amnesty International sign with a sign-in sheet on the back, while the rest of us are manning the table

Other people at our table: Tasnuva 

       * WE NEED MORE PEOPLE!

Table Display: Shirts (Saima? Shahara? Tasfia? Zarrin?), Pins, Stickers, Flyers

Candy: Tahirah? Saima? Sumaiya?

Flyers: Same flyers from last time, with the addition of day and room number

Video on Laptop: Aniqa

Weekly Meetings
We also made a mock calendar, just so we have somewhat of an idea of what we'll be discussing in the upcoming meetings. For this calendar, we are assuming Amnesty will be on Tuesdays (I asked Shahara today during lunch, she said MSA is 99% sure for Wednesday, so I suppose we're 99% sure for Tuesday)

1st Meeting Tuesday 9/24 - Introduction to Amnesty International

2nd Meeting Tuesday 10/1 - Girls Rights/ Girls Education (Sumaiya and Ayesha won't be here for ZTest and TestTakers)

3rd Meeting Tuesday 10/8 - Girls Rights/ Girls Education (Sumaiya and Ayesha won't be here for ZTest and TestTakers)

-----------------------------Friday 10/11 is International Day of the Girl Event-------------------

4th Meeting Tuesday 10/15 - Poverty (This is the day before the PSAT, so Sumaiya and Ayesha won't be here)

5th Meeting Tuesday 10/22 - Poverty demonstration through ~~HUNGER BANQUET~~ Click here to read about it!

Urgent Action Network

The Urgent Action Network is a part of Amnesty International that involves protesting situations that need IMMEDIATE action. When you sign up to be a member of the Urgent Action Network, you get a lot of emails that ask you to send letters, emails, faxes, and more to government officials who have the power to stop human rights violations.  

I recently talked on the phone with the field organizer for Amnesty New York, and she strongly suggests that we participate in the Urgent Action Network. The way it works is that I will get an email about an issue happening that needs a rapid response. We tell the club about issue, we tell them about the problem, and we tell them why we're writing letters. We'd pass out pre-written letters for everyone that they can sign, or they can write the letters themselves. We sign these letters, put them in a big yellow envelope, and send them out altogether. Sending all these letters can cost $3 to $5, so we'll have to start setting aside money for this. 

But the field organizer said that the members will actually see that they are making a difference every single meeting by participating in the Urgent Action Network every single meeting, and she said that this has worked spectacularly in groups she has worked with in the past. InshaaAllah this can work for us as well! Since this shouldn't take too long, we can set aside the last 15 minutes of every meeting to the Urgent Action Network. OH AND ONE OF THE COOLEST PARTS: Sometimes we'll get responses! 

1st Meeting Tuesday 9/24 - Introduction to Amnesty International 

Here is the SLIDESHOW we'll be using. Feel free to add/change things! The slideshow will introduce us and explain what we do at Amnesty. Then, one of the slides will ask, "What are human rights?" We'll ask the members to give some definitions, and then as an answer, we'll play The Story of Human Rights (the link is already on the slideshow). After this video, we'll create a list on the board of human rights issues that are important to us, and that we want to focus on this year (To get them started, we'll give some of our own human rights interests). We'll get some answers, and then we'll play 50 Years of Amnesty International (the link is already on the slideshow) so that they will see a lot of the different human rights violations that exist, and get ideas from it. 

I'll make brownies, so I hope someone else can bring chips or something. We can distribute these while they're watching one of the longer videos. 

We'll talk about:

. Past events (Write for Rights, Veil for a Day, HennaFest)

. Future events (International Day of the Girl, possible Fashion Show Fundraiser)

. Possible hang-out days (Trip to Holocaust Museum, Tour of United Nations)

. Movie days (Road to Guantanamo, Saving Face)

At the end, we can explain the Urgent Action Network, and lastly we'll play the short Standing Up For Freedom video.  And that will be the end of Meeting 1!

International Day of the Girl Event 10/11

If it's possible, we should PLASTER the walls with educational posters of International Day of the Girl. Also, we should fundraise. This event is definitely something we're going to have to talk about more soon, as we hardly have anything planned. But it's okay!

______________________________

I think this is all we talked about. LET ME KNOW IF THERE'S ANYTHING ELSE IMPORTANT I LEFT OUT THAT WE NEED TO KNOW. Also if I have your name and a question written down, it means I'm unsure if you're going to do something. Like I put a lot of names with question marks for candy during the club fair. Please let us know if you'll be able to bring anything! 

IM SORRY THAT MY EMAILS ARE ALWAYS SO LONG. 

Love you guys! InshaaAllah this year will go great!

-Ayesha