During International Day students from the college's Amnesty International Group gave presentations about various important issues to a group of students and staff in an effort to raise awareness of what is happening in the world. The following are excerpts from some of the first year IB student presentations.

Human rights
My group spoke about Human Rights. We tried to communicate the importance and the value of human rights for our societies. We also tried to show that for many of us a life with human rights is normal. There are so many people in other parts of the world, but also in our western world, who suffer from human rights infringement. We read about this in newspapers, but do we really notice that there are always human beings involved?
Our group tried to show that all those anonymous persons have faces, feelings, friends, families and voices. We let those voices speak; we let the faces be seen. Our audience started to think about the fates of these people and they got involved in the cases.
But my group knew that only talking is not enough. You have to change such grievances, you have to improve them. But if you want to improve things, you have to do something. We gave ‘keys of freedom' to everyone as a sign against human rights infringements. The people had to write their name on one of the cards connected to the keys.
It is just symbolic and a small part of helping people around the world, but it is a beginning. The keys can become a symbol of resistance against inhuman regimes and actions. We wanted to show our listeners the importance of human rights in the world, but also our “arrogance.”
Jan Korner

Asylum seekers and Refugees
Our presentation on Asylum seekers and Refugees intended to shed some light on the situation around the world. We thought it was best not to focus on one specific location, but to broaden our topics of conversation to enlighten our audience that this is a global issue.
We commenced with a short introductory speech, explaining what we were going to cover in the presentation, and what it was that we were presenting. This led on to a DVD about Amnesty International which we shared with our audience. We continued by giving a personal PowerPoint presentation backed by voices from our group (reading from script) from real life accounts, which allowed the audience to see how the situation of refugees even affects more people than expected. From professional footballers, pop singers, and poverty stricken children. We concluded with a short activity with our audience, and got them to sign a petition that we would send off to people of importance who could change this situation.
Overall I believe our presentation was effective and shocked viewers. We conveyed a strong and powerful message which many won't forget. We encouraged many to participate in our group discussions of global concerns in Amnesty and other organisations. I also believe our message changed some people's attitudes toward the situation, and got them to contribute to help make a difference.
Craig French

Arms control
We started off with a quick introduction about the problem of arms control in the world which was then followed by a showing of the “bid-TV” parody DVD where an AK-47 is modelled and sold on a TV shopping channel; this was, in my opinion, very effective.
We then gave individual presentations which focused on different areas of the world in which arms control is a problem (Darfur etc). Lastly, we handed out postcard letters to everybody who wanted to sign them. These postcards urge the Prime Ministers, Presidents etc. of various countries to vote for a global arms treaty. We collected them in and sent them off. On the whole the presentation was successful in raising awareness and knowledge of the problem and its possible solutions.
Adam Radwan

Stop Violence against Women
Our group gave a presentation to make people more aware of what violence against women is and why it happens. We began with reading different stories from women around the world explaining how they have been affected by violence.  Afterwards we showed the students an Amnesty DVD with different people, for example a friend or employee, discussing a situation where a woman they know has been affected by violence. We discussed the DVD as a group which caused some fairly heated discussions! We also explained how Amnesty tries to help the situation and what they do to try and stop it.
Before our presentation ended, we found a huge bedsheet and got everybody to dip their hands in pink paint to cover it with handprints, we also got everybody to sign a petition and also letters that we produced to send away.
Hannah Hunt