Activity 8

Age Level: High school to adult

Time: About 45 minutes

Subject Areas: Social studies, English

* To obtain a current case, look at the Amnesty International USA OUTfront Website at www.amnestyusa.org/group/outfront or the Urgent Action Office, specifying a LGBT case, at email: [email protected]. Tel: (303) 440-0913.

Part 1: How to take effective action

Distribute copies of Handout 1: Romanian Urgent Action Case to students. They can read this in class or as homework in preparation for this class.

Handout 3: Gay Romanians Have a Long Way to Go describes the individuals and the social context involved in this case. You may want to assign it to students to give additional background.

Part 2: Taking action now�Letter writing

Ask students to read Handout 4: Current Urgent Action Case, obtained from the OUTfront Program or Urgent Action Network of Amnesty International USA. (See footnote on page 71.) Using the Romanian letter as a model, students should write a brief and courteous letter to the officials listed in the Urgent Action.

After students have completed their letters, ask them to work in pairs to edit them. The pairs should take responsibility for editing the letters to make them polished enough for sending to a head of state. To facilitate peer editing, each student should fill out a copy of Handout 5: Editor's Feedback Form. Students should return the original letter and the form to their partners, answering any questions the partners might have about comments or suggestions.

You may also wish to review the draft letters before students write their final drafts, using the editor's feedback form or writing your comments directly on the students'drafts.

Students should write a final draft of their letters incorporating their partners'editing comments.

A note about sending the letters

Encourage students to send their letters by post or email. Explain that in most cases, students should not expect a response to their letter, even if they requested one. The power of Urgent Action letters comes in numbers. When thousands of people write on behalf of others' human rights, governments listen.

Some school boards and principals are concerned about students mailing letters to foreign officials. For most students, there are absolutely no repercussions to exercising their right of free expression to officials in other countries. Students who are citizens of these other countries or who have relatives there may not want to send their letters in order to protect their safety and that of family members. Letters should be sent only with the consent of the students who wrote them. For students who are not sending their letters, stress the value of this activity as an exercise in learning how to write a formal letter using careful language and persuasive supporting evidence.

Part 3: Taking action now Petitioning

As a class, using the language from the letters to El Salvador, write a petition to the president of El Salvador. Ask for a volunteer to write a final copy of the petition on the computer and print it with lines where others can sign.

As a whole class, brainstorm how to get signatures on the petition. Distribute copies of the petition to students who are interested in collecting signatures. Signed petitions should be sent as a packet.

Updates on Urgent Actions