Amnesty International USA

WHEREAS Amnesty International is a grassroots organization with a strong representation of students;

WHEREAS democratic input into the actions of Amnesty International, strengthen the organization at its grassroots;

WHEREAS members are more likely to participate in an action if they have had a direct input in the decision-making process;

WHEREAS the National Week of Student Action is a primary mechanism for students to show activism in Amnesty International USA;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the National Campus Advisory Committee with consideration of AIUSA priorities and consultation with relevant country specialists in association with the National Field Program, will design a strategy to select a slate and date for the National Week of Student Action and conduct a vote of student members to choose the theme.

The National Field Program (NFP) and the National Campus Advisory Committee (NCAC) worked together to create a plan for selecting the 2003 National Week of Student Action theme prior to this resolution passing. To select the 2004 theme, the NCAC and the NFP will work together to refine and implement the plan. In 2003 the plan was as follows:

The NFP solicited proposals from Country Specialists and program staff, using a call for proposals which outlined specific criteria (e.g. needed to related to an AIUSA priority). The NFP followed up on incomplete proposals, from which a short list was shared with the NCAC. (The NCAC got a list of what proposals were submitted, but proposals that didn’t meet the criteria were cut at this point.) From this list, a slate of 4 proposals was created. The NCAC and NFP worked together to create a voting mechanism, which consisted of students voting via paper ballot at regional conferences and voting online. (The voting process was promoted to students through email bursts and at regional conferences.) Mechanisms were set up so that a person could only vote once (or if they voted more than once, only one vote was counted). The voting deadline was set for after the last regional conference, after which votes were tallied and the winning theme was announced.

Update: The selection of the slate and the voting of this slate by AIUSA student activists has been implemented. This year, AIUSA programs were invited to submit proposals for the NWSA. NFP worked with the NCAC to narrow proposals submitted to four ballot choices: Natural Resource Exploitation, Violence, and the Democratic Republic of Congo; End Violence Against Women; End Racial Profiling—Post 9/11; Abolish the Juvenile Death Penalty. Voting was available on-line and paper ballots were available at regional conferences. The voting process was promoted to students through email bursts. Mechanisms were set up so that a person could only vote once From October 24th – November 12th, over 320 students and youth nation-wide participated in voting for the NWSA theme, selecting the VAW Campaign.

The selection of date in order to accommodate students’ schedules has not been addressed given the fixed timeline of the NWSA process. However, further work is being done to fully address this & to allow more flexibility in the

selection of the date. Therefore, this part has not been implemented and needs further monitoring.