Human Rights Day is observed every year on December 10th. It commemorates the day on which, in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This year's Human Rights Day is devoted to the launch of a year-long campaign on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the two International Covenants on Human Rights: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 16 December 1966.
To mark this day we, the North Zone, India team (Regional coordinator Sadanand Biswas, and Liaison Officer Subhi Dhupar along with Tronica City Cooperation CircleNorth None, India team) visited refugees from Kashmir and helped them with what we could. As refugees have become a mounting challenge for all the governments in the world and stand as one of the most pressing issues of the day, a visit to Shastri Park, New Delhi refugee camp stood to speak a different story of its own. Our Cooperation Circle members donated warm winter clothes as a gesture to give relief to at least a few from the chilling cold winters.
Terrorism, fear of life and surmounting political tensions round the globe have led families to desert their homeland and flee for safety. This low lying camp site set in the midst of garbage and water supply pipelines silently speaks the story of displacement and hope. With around 550 families and many adding each year with different identities, are provided with basic necessities of medicine and water by the Delhi Government but with no life supporting aids for food, education or employment. People survive on donations by common men and self-employment skills like making carpets and shawls. The constant everyday struggle to survive and meet basic necessities lurks large in addition to cultural, social and psychological pains of displacement and despairing hopes for the future.
This year the United Nations aim to promote and raise awareness of the two Covenants on their 50th anniversary with the slogan of “Our Rights. Our Freedoms. Always". Revolving around the theme of rights and freedoms -- freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear, we need to understand and connect with the ground realities to make a real difference and put into action the aims set at the global level.
