Youth Rights Festival

Changemaker: Ryan Febrianto

Talking about the issue of human rights and diversity in Indonesia publicly is still difficult due to the sensitivity of the subject matter, especially amongst young people. Despite this, the fact still stands that human rights and diversity is part of every day life for young people. Our research shows that young people still have little to no understanding on the basic concepts of human rights. To alleviate this situation, a group of young people joined in the Youth for Humanity Indonesia community would like to organize a festival that will give a chance for young people, especially in Jakarta and its surrounding areas as the political center of Indonesia and as a metropolitan, diverse city, to find out about human rights and youth diversity in a more ‘pop’ manner through Youth Rights Festival, held in November (roadshow) and culminating in 8th of December 2012 in Jakarta, in conjunction with the International Human Rights Day.

The attendees to this festival are young people, aged 15-30 years, from various backgrounds. This festival will commence in the form of a roadshow to several schools, speaking on anti-bullying and understanding diversity, holding a seminar as a discussion space, and with sports and arts exhibition which will promote young people’s unique way of campaigning on human rights and youth diversity. We hope that this method will also lead to young people’s voices being heard and for young people to be involved in the nation’s development. The festival will also provide a Changemakers Training as a way for the attendees to realize their social ideas into concrete social projects that they will implement in their respective communities through training named “Human Rights Defender Camp”. Today, there are 30 young people from various economic backgrounds, ethnic background, sexual orientation, beliefs, and ideologies joined together in the Youth for Humanity Indonesia community. We aim to show that diversity and difference is something to be appreciated, in order to create inclusive social change in our society. For information on our community and what we have achieved/done, we invite you to visit our website: http://youthrightsfest.tumblr.com