Student members of the University of Windsor Law Chapter with Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) have a reason to be proud. Working with JHR, the student chapter arranged for and fundraised to send colleague Christina Beninger to intern this summer in Kumasi, Ghana with the Centre for Human Rights and Advanced Legal Research (CHRALER).
Beninger, a second year law student was selected for the internship. The position will entail researching local human rights issues and providing legal assistance to local community otherwise unable to secure legal assistance. Christina has long volunteered with several human interest organizations including: Amnesty International, Kids Help Phone, the Western Canada Society to Access Justice, and Community Legal Aid to name a few.
Christina exemplifies the ideals of Windsor law, a strong interest in human rights initiatives balanced with great academic success. While always finding time to participate in important extra-curricular activities, she also finished in the top 10 per cent of the entire Law I Class, 2006.
Although several human rights internships exist, most of them remain unsubsidized leaving many students wanting to work in human rights unable to afford to so. During the past three years, at least five Windsor law students had attempted to volunteer with JHR in Africa; however each student found securing funding to be an insurmountable barrier to participation. So far, $3582.22 has been raised towards Beninger’s internship fund through various fundraising efforts.
JHR is a charitable organization that harnesses the power of the media to combat human rights abuses. By building the capacity of the media to report effectively on human rights issues, JHR's work pressures abusers to stop and empowers victims to fight back. This work has not gone unrecognized; recently a JHR project was funded by the United Nations Democracy Fund. JHR has 22 chapters in post-secondary institutions across Canada, actively engaging over 20 per cent of Canada's journalism students in human rights reporting. Windsor law is the first law school-based university chapter. JHR has offices in Ghana and Toronto. For more information, visit their website at: www.jhr.ca
At this time any donations to support the internship are still being sought to help reach their goal of $5000 and donors receive a tax receipt. On her return from Ghana, Christina will be responsible for leading fundraising efforts for the 2008 internship. For more information regarding CHRALER, visit www.chraler.org
If you would like to offer support, please e-mail [email protected]
