Welcome!

Dear friends,

We are glad to inform you that after our pleasant experience with the Italian blog, the IIMA Human Rights Office has decided to open a new blog in English.

On this blog, you may follow our main activities with the United Nations and its mechanisms for the protection and promotion of human rights, as well as news from the UN bodies and IIMA offices in different countries related to the right to education.

Do you want to collaborate with us? You can apply for an internship at the IIMA Human Rights Office. Click here!

Have a great time reading!

28.11.13

A word leads to an idea. From an idea, something concrete rises.


When we think of an ambassador, we have a solemn picture in our mind: with think of someone with a high political role, a woman or a man formally dressed, dealing with protocol and being cautiously diplomatic. Well, embassies represent a golden world, where you can find warmth and you can have an honest exchange.
While the new crucial negotiation on nuclear power is happening with Iran at the International Conference Centre in Geneva, the diplomatic heart of the world, Sister MariaGrazia and Sister Leonor, together with Maria D’Onofrio, Advocacy Officer of IIMA Office, completed a tough program of embassies visits. They didn’t deal with negotiations, but with genuine sharing.

19.11.13

Dear Humanity, find your lost childhood!


Today, all of us go back and we are little kids again. On November 20th, the World celebrates the International Day of the Child. This day reminds us of the date when the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.

Dignity. That is the magic word.
Dignity was born together with the human being, you can read it in his eyes. It is not transmitted through DNA.
Dignity is something you take care of, with devotion. Dignity must be stated, not conquered as a war chest. It is both gift and responsibility.
It is not a privilege. It is the beating heart of life.  
Dignity gives you freedom; it is not the stone that an oyster transforms into a beautiful pearl after an enduring sufferance.
My child, that pearl belongs to you, already. It should belong to you already.
Forgive me if I am forced to speak of it as a dream, instead of an actuality.
We must forgive this world that disfigures your right!

15.11.13

Take your brick…and believe! – Stories of Peace


When two Nobel Prizes winners, Martti Ahtisaari and José Ramos-Horta, tell about their long-time experience and their passionate fight, our wish of Peace smells like hope, because we feel it’s not just about words. Which better location than Room XX, the room of “Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations", to host a dialogue of Peace? Held in Palais des Nations on Wednesday, November 13th, the Conference was entitled "Complexities of Peacemaking: the untold story”. In Geneva, which has been consecrated, once again, the capital of dialogue and mediation, the setting for negotiations and conciliation.
The two leaders shared a very charismatic dialogue. One is a cold and calm Nordic man, who had a written speech and a typically Finnish aplomb. The other one has the heart from the South: passionate and lively, he talked off-the-cuff, entertaining with jokes and irony and bringing the assembly to an unexpected laugh.