The 6th Annual Human Rights Conference at Kean University

The 6th Annual International Conference on Human Rights sponsored by the Human Rights Institute at Kean University will be held on Friday, March 8, 2013. This year’s theme is #ENOUGH! - Affecting Change from the Frontlines to Your Newsfeed. We are pleased to announce our keynote speaker: John Prendergast.

This conference is free and open to the public. Educators are especially encouraged to attend and bring their students. Professional development credits (CEUs) will be available with advance registration. On-site check-in on the day of the conference will begin at 8 a.m. in Wilkins Theatre, located at 1000 Morris Avenue in Union, N.J. As it becomes available, additional information on the day’s program and other speakers will be posted aton the Program Schedule page.

John Prendergast is a human rights activist and best-selling author who has worked for peace in Africa for more than 25 years. He is co-founder of the Enough Project, an initiative to end genocide and crimes against humanity affiliated with the Center for American Progress.

John has worked for the Clinton White House, the State Department, two members of Congress, the National Intelligence Council, UNICEF, Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, and the U.S. Institute of Peace. He has served as a Big Brother for more than 25 years, as well as a youth counselor and a basketball coach. John is a board member and serves as Strategic Advisor to Not On Our Watch, the organization founded by George Clooney, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, and Brad Pitt. 

John is an author or co-author of 10 books including his latest, Unlikely Brothers, a dual memoir co-authored with his first little brother in the Big Brother program. His previous two books, co-authored with Don Cheadle, include: Not On Our Watch, which was named a New York Times bestseller and NAACP non-fiction book of the year, and The Enough Moment: Fighting to End Africa's Worst Human Rights Crimes.

John’s “Enough Moment” inspires this year’s Human Rights Institute Conference theme. An enough moment is a point in our life, he explained, when something clicks inside and being a bystander to human rights violations is no longer an option. This occurs to individuals who have faced human rights abuses firsthand as well as to citizens or celebrities who seek to defend the human rights of our brothers and sisters from around the globe.

As he and Don write in the book, "There will always be injustice, driven by greed, bigotry, power. But the degree to which injustice is thwarted and countered and reversed is up to us. The battle is joined. We hope you will choose to be part of it. Millions of lives hang in the balance."

To that end, we invite and encourage you to participate in the International Conference on Human Rights at Kean University on March 8.
Please visit www.kean.edu/humanrightsconference regularly for updates and registration information as it becomes available. If you have any questions, please send e-mail to humanrights@kean.edu. 

The mission of the Human Rights Institute at Kean University is to raise awareness of human rights violations worldwide and to inspire action to combat these injustices. The Human Rights Institute sponsors a broad range of activities, including seminars and conferences, and works with school districts to produce curricula and materials for students. Kean also offers an interdisciplinary M.A. in Holocaust & Genocide Studies degree that specifically studies the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, other Genocides and atrocities that human beings commit against each other.