Breaking the Silence: Using popular culture to engage young people in human rights reporting

Audience at a stadium watching a sports gameNigdy Wiêcej (Never Again) uses a number of tactics to carry out its work in Poland. Two of the tactics explained in this case study are the use of cultural resources in the community to recruit activists and the organization of activists into an information-gathering network. The experience highlighted here demonstrates how these tactics have been used to engage and involve young people, a segment of the population whose attention can be challenging to capture and even more difficult to hold onto. The author also illustrates how different tactics are combined to reinforce and strengthen each other. While Nigdy Wiêcej used these tactics to fight racism and neo-fascism, one can imagine other ways they might be applied to broaden involvement in human rights, especially among youth.

Year of Publication: 2003
Author(s): Rafal Pankowski

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