By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

knowledge is power

Human rights conference for youth happening this week

Dec 8, 2019 | 11:42 AM

A few hundred Red Deer students will attend the first ever Central Alberta Stand Up for Human Rights Conference this week.

The event is taking place Tuesday at the YMCA in north Red Deer.

Event co-organizer and Red Deer College Student Ambassador Logan Garbanewski says it’s about more than simply teaching about human rights.

“We believe it’s important to empower kids to become human rights champions. We would like to see a future focused around a better world for everybody, so if we can equip our youth with the proper tools to do that, we should start now,” he says.

“CAPRA is coming to talk about increasing access to food, because we have a serious issue in the world where we can sustain more people than we have on Earth, yet people are still dying of starvation.”

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Garbanewski adds that in some countries, one cannot be openly LGBTQ+.

“That’s another huge thing, and that’s why we have Pride parades here in Canada, to show our solidarity with other people around the world who don’t have the same freedoms.”

The Canadian Human Rights Commission reports that it accepted 1129 complaints in 2018, the highest in a decade.

They also report that the number of complaints citing disability, national or ethnic original, race, colour, religion, and sex were the highest in a decade. Complaints related to race in 2018 were 118 per cent higher than the 10-year average.

The conference is happening through a partnership between Central Alberta Refugee Effort, Piper Creek Optimist Club, the Human Rights Education and Multiculturalism Fund, the RDC Student Ambassador Leadership program, YMCA of Northern Alberta, Youth for Human Rights International, and the Alberta Association for Multicultural Education.