Data That Are Needed to Advance Human Rights in Chapel Hill and Carrboro

Information/Communication:

According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, only 29 percent of school-age children in households with annual incomes of less that $15,000 use a home computer to complete school assignments, compared to the 77 percent of children in households with incomes of $75,000 or more. Information as a human right is something that needs to be emphasized.

Cultural Pluralism:

Everyone has the right to celebrate their culture, and this right should be respected and protected by all members of the community. But, how can the community respect and protect underrepresented cultures if they do not know they are there? In order to promote and protect cultural pluralism in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, it is necessary to know what cultures actually are represented. What people live in the area and what types of things are important to them? It would be beneficial if the town provided information about the demographics of the population and cultural facts that might be interesting.

Education:

My topic for the semester was discrimination in the educational systems of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. It is important that the community learns about the educational gap in the school systems. By learning this information, governmental officials, school officials, and the community as a whole will be able to create a plan to ensure that every student achieves at the same level.

Only 44 percent of black students passed both reading and math end-of-grade tests at the elementary level, which is far below the district's 93 percent average for white students. (Chapel Hill/Carrboro end of the year report card).

Children:

The website for the town of Chapel Hill/Carrboro needs to include a section about recreation.

Housing:

How many homeless people are from Chapel Hill or just come here for the homeless shelter? How many people have been homeless for a year or long? How many people have been chronically homeless? What is the relationship between substance abuse and homelessness? How can the homeless shelter accommodate all the homeless people in Chapel Hill? It only can accommodate 30 people (only 30 beds). What can the local government do? How can the citizens participate in this endeavor?

Healthcare:

It is quite clear that the citizens of Chapel Hill and Carrboro need to be more informed about healthcare in order to empower themselves and advance the human rights of everyone. The healthcare problem with Chapel Hill and Carrboro is that the problem seems to be non-existent - we need more awareness! Residents need to understand that there are a significant number of low-income and unemployed residents that lack adequate healthcare.

Women:

Some important and necessary pieces of information to uncover would be: what is the exact average wage gap of Chapel Hill/Carrboro? What percentage of businesses provide child care? Maternity leave with more job security? Paternity leave?

Refugees:

It would be very beneficial to the community to learn about the holidays and festivals celebrated by the local refugee community, in particular those of the prevalent Burmese refugee population. It would be neat for these celebrations to take place in the public schools where children of the local Burmese refugee community are enrolled. Additionally, a public celebration of a holiday, for example the Burmese Water Festival, once a year in Chapel Hill or Carrboro would not only engage many members of the community, but would raise awareness about the diversity of our community and the existence of the Burmese refugee population.

Rogers/Eubanks Project:

I would like to know the legality of the Rogers/Eubanks dump project. They claimed that they would shut it down ten years after opening it, but have not kept their word. Are there any laws prohibiting their current actions? What percentage of the Carrboro population is affected negatively and positively by the dump and what is the racial spread on those figures?

Police:

Something that we need to know is out of all the youth that will enroll in the Police Venturing Crew program, how many will/ might have possible conflicts with their work schedules. Some kids especially from low socioeconomic backgrounds might miss out on this opportunity, how can we ensure that they benefit from this program as well. The program focuses on 14-21 years old, and will allow a relationship between the resource officers and the youth in the community.

~Compiled by Kaila Ramsey

Environmental Rights

By: Yates Creech

The most depressing and daunting discovery I have made thus far, is that there is no apparent department for the environment on the City of Chapel Hill’s website. I have thoroughly explored the site and the closest I could get to the environment was a link to Greenways and parks in Chapel Hill. There is also, an entire page devoted to development with no mention of its impact on the environment.

The Chapel Hill Town Council has created a new advisory board that is centered on developing a sustainability plan for the Town, and carrying out education and outreach activities. The Town is currently engaged in a number of community-wide projects related to sustainability, including implementation of its Community Carbon Reduction (CRed) pledge to reduce carbon emissions by 60 percent by the year 2050. The Town has adopted milestones for per capita reduction of carbon emissions from municipal operations. The Town is also a partner in the Orange County Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Study, which plans to inventory county-wide greenhouse gas emissions.

Women's Rights

By: Kaila Ramsey

For this past Spring semester I have been learning more about international concepts of human rights and how they can be applied locally to the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, especially in considering women's rights. The international treaties make very clear the needs for providing child care, for maternity and paternity leave, for more job security for women, and specifically addressing the issue of the gendered wage gap that exists even here in our university towns. As of right now in Chapel Hill/Carrboro there is no way to require businesses to provide health care, a fair wage, or job security to their employees.

One important thing I did this semester was to meet with administrators and workers at the Orange County Women's Center and the Carolina Women's Center (addressing the needs of women on UNC's campus). As I did more research both on the nation and on this area, I realized the most problematic issue was the lack of facts and information or research on this topic of women's rights. Both centers do not have any kind of statistics available to them to cite about the wage gap in these counties, or the percentages of businesses that offer child care support. Obtaining and publicizing this information would be the first big necessary step to conquering the gender inequity here in our backyard.

Lastly, I compiled lists of potential partnerships that could occur between active student organizations in the community, and researched the need to teach and promote fiscal responsibility among citizens of Chapel Hill/Carrboro.

Rights to Children

By: Shaconda Johnson

In the Convention of the Rights of the Child, Article 28 states, "States Parties recognize the right of the child to education, and with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity." This semester I was focused on the rights of childern. For most of the semester Hameka and myself worked to research discrimination in school system. One of the ways we dicussed and raised awareness about this topic was through a focus group. In this focus group, we discussed discriminatory experiences/issues that former current students have dealt with in their educational careers.

Right to Education

By: Hameka Canady

This semester, I focused on discrimination in the school systems of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. According to article one of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, every child has the right to education and equal treatment in school. For the past couple of months, I have worked closely with Professor Patricia Parker and her students from her program Still Lifting, Still Climbing. During this time, I became educated about various discriminatory scenarios in the students’ schools in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. For this reason, I conducted a focus group with the students in Sociology 290 to gain more information about the experiences with discrimination in their personal school systems. Largely, every student in the class was either affected or was aware of inequality of students. In the future, it is imperative that the public become informed about this problem in order to change as well as ensure that every student in Chapel Hill/Carrboro receives an equal education.

Housing Rights

By: Beau Delapouyade, Lizzy Adkisson, and Clark Woodard

Over the course of the year, Beau, Lizzy, and myself have worked on both networking with in the community by volunteering and have become active within homeless organizations. In addition, we have been collecting information on resources for two separate pamphlet. Beau has been focusing more heavily on the networking aspect of our project. She has volunteered under Laurie Tucker, the Residential Services Director at Interfaith Council Community House in Chapel Hill. Interfaith Community Council provides a facility which sleeps 30 men, located on the corner of Rosemary St. and Columbia Ave. Beau has also become involved with Project Homeless Connect (PHC). PHC is a one day event in which homeless can access to dental, housing, daycare, and social services. Cities across the globe have adopted the premise of PHC. The second annual event is scheduled for September 25, 2008. If anyone is interested in attending the next meeting which will be held on May 8, contact Beau (beau14@email.unc.edu).

On the other side of the project, we have worked on collecting and compiling resources for the homeless. The final project should be completed with in the week. Then, we plan on distributing it to both the Interfaith Council Community House as well as at the May 8^th Project Homeless Connect meeting. The second pamphlet will consist of tips for community involvement and awareness. We have also discussed creating a facebook event in hopes of encouraging student donations of can food and clothing to the IFC shelter.

As far as next year goes, it is important that students continue to build strong ties with community members who are actively working to solve the homeless problem in the Chapel Hill and Carrboro community. As the day nears, Project Homeless Connect will inevitably need more and more help. Continued involvement will spark future projects and networking will be key in the success of demonstrating the necessity of housing rights within a human rights framework.

The Right to Food

By: Amy Shaffer

Everyone has a right to food. Some international laws recognize this, but the U.S. has not institutionalized this right into law.

After-school programs, state/federal agencies, churches, and other local organizations operate in Chapel Hill/Carrboro to ensure that residents of the community do not suffer from food insecurity. However, I have discovered that these resources use wording that connotes food as a charity, not a basic right. This mentality is not only demeaning, but only further permeates discrimination between the rich and the poor.

I met with Charles Williams, administrative assistant at the IFC Carrboro Food Pantry, who addressed the interconnectivity of human rights issues in the community. He said that issues like poverty, food insecurity and homelessness are community issues and if the community intermingles (rich and poor) as a united force, then more resources can be utilized to aid these problems. He added that there are challenges because Chapel Hill/Carrboro is a very transient community.

Additionally, he noted a conspiracy rooted at the mental health program of N.C. He claimed that John Umstead has literally dumped patients at their homeless shelters due to lack of funds, even though the hospital is aware these people need medication and financial assistance.

There are institutional barriers to change, but the community is working towards change, said Williams. More awareness is needed and more resources need to be pumped into already-existing programs.

Information and Human Rights

By: Bernard Worthy

Information as a human right is something I have never considered until this semester, but yet it has been staring me in the face my entire life. Coming from an impoverished area of an Atlanta suburb I can totally relate to this issue, from the privileged and unprivileged perspective. Growing up, my parents always went the extra mile to ensure that I had access to whatever necessary when it came to my academics, because they were not afforded the same opportunities. I never really thought about it until high school when I realized that some of my best friends did not even have access to a working computer at home.

How can we expect the achievement gap to be repressed when there are so many basic holes like limited access to information? We want our young minorities to vote, but what if they canʼt log on to cnn.com every day to educate themselves on the issues and candidates? What about the out of work young refugee working class man that canʼt submit his resume to monster.com or he canʼt check it at the library frequently enough because it closes? On another note, we all want to help our communities, but what if the information about our Human Rights Cities initiative doesnʼt reach the people who want to help the most? It is their right to know about our work. Information as a human right is definitely a complicated and multi-faceted issue, but equal access to information is something that should be easy.

Non-Discriminationatory Towns

By: Stacey Garner

This semester I have looked at what Chapel Hill and Carrboro are doing to create non-discriminatory towns.

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: All are equal before the law, are entitled to live without any discrimination and are entitled to equal protection of the law.

Chapel Hill/ Carrboro does its part:

• has an office/committee for inclusionary zoning
• Justice in Action -“To adequately and effectively reflect the Town of Chapel Hill’s integrity and commitment to preserving racial, economic, and social justice within the community” (town on Chapel Hill).
• equal employment opportunity/Affirmative Action employer
• discrimination not allowed while seeking to rent or buy housing in Orange County

-creating more affordable housing units (Dobbins Hill)

• equal opportunity for early education

Chapel Hill and Carborro have room for improvement

• The inclusionary office and Justice in Action office need to be more than a placement holder. Currently, the Justice in Action committee is working on ways to increase membership and unable to focus on preserving justice w/in the community.
• Jobs and housing offered to different racial/ethnic groups continue to segregate. Though we should be encouraged by the strides made, segregation is not enough!
• There are few organizations that bring different racial/ethnic grps. together
• There remains to be a shortage of affordable housing units and jobs opportunities within the city limits.
• Lack of community organization that teach against discrimination for older population

Rights of Refugees

By: Tessa Bialek

This semester, my project has been to focus on the Rights of Refugees as they pertain to the Chapel Hill and Carrboro refugee population.

International human rights framework:

• 1951 United Nations Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, includes:

  • Commitment to family reunification

  • Freedom from discrimination

  • The right to wage-earning employment

  • The right to housing

  • The right to education.

Resources:

• Weekly interactions in a community ESL class

• Websites of local organizations

• Local newspaper articles

• Report: “People from Burma Living in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, An Action Oriented Community Diagnosis: Findings and Next Steps of Action” published in May 2007 <http://www.hsl.unc.edu/PHpapers/Orange_2007.pdf >

Chapel Hill and Carrboro offer many important services to the local refugee community, including:

• Free ESL services

• Health care

• Job placement assistance

• Resettlement assistance.

However, there are also many possibilities for improvement:

• The “People from Burma” study points to:

  • The inability of many to attend ESL classes due to schedule conflicts with work

  • Insufficient interpreter services

  • Lack of community organization

  • Lack of adequate health care knowledge as major concerns facing the local refugee community

• Also, since I began my research, there have been at least two cases of robberies targeting the local Burmese communities.

  • Leads to Fear

  • Doesn’t make the refugee community feel safe or welcome

• Celebrating the culture of the refugee community:

  • I could not find any information about celebrations of Burmese holidays or culture, even though I was actively seeking them out.

  • The “People of Burma…” report makes similar suggestions, noting the benefits of consolidating pertinent information on a website and trying to involve more people in the community (35). While their intention seems to be to make these resources available for the Burmese refugee community, a welcome side effect would be their availability to all Chapel Hill and Carrboro residents.

Economic Refugees:

• Based on a speaker from the NC Justice Center at the April 6^th Conference called 'Community Impacts of Local Responses to Undocumented Immigration'

  • Undocumented immigrants as 'economic refugees'

    • No legal definition for this exists - thus, undocumented migrants have no legal recognition or protection.

    • Everyone is worse off when people don't have equal rights, for example low income citizens in the same workplace as undocumented workers.

    • Many workplace abuses happen, ignored because the majority of workers are undocumented and thus, in our system, don't have the rights that they should have as human beings.

    • UN Declaration of Human Rights as relevant to the discussion of immigration:

    • Many of the problems facing the local undocumented immigrant community, such as community inclusion, availability of ESL and other services, and prevalence of crimes committed against them, parallel the problems facing the local refugee community. Thus, it is valuable to consider these two populations as linked.

Health Care

Patricia Alessi

Everyone has the right to health. Yet, as I have discovered, this statement is not always true. During this semester, after I attended a healthcare talk held at the Carrboro City Hall, I worked on trying to understand the current healthcare system situation that exists in our country. My findings revealed that we have much work to do in achieving universal healthcare in the United States. While our federal government is severely stalling on this situation—mainly because privatized healthcare is a multi-billion dollar industry that is putting the pressure on the government to stay in business—several states have started to take up the “right to healthcare” fight. Indeed, Massachusetts has set up a healthcare system in which those who do not have healthcare will be provided it by the state. Moreover, as seen by Canada and England, it is possible for a country to offer its citizens universal healthcare. Nevertheless, the United States is still the only industrialized country that does not guarantee this right to health.

North Carolina is finally joining the fight for healthcare for its residents with a bill that they are trying to amend to the North Carolina Constitution. This bill would state that healthcare is a human right. Yet, while this is a good start, more needs to be done. We need to not only state that healthcare is a human right, but also actually provide it. Therefore, through several suggestions in my final written report, I believe that North Carolina can begin to offer this right to its residents. Moreover, North Carolina needs to join other states that believe in healthcare as a right to start to demand it from our government. In the worst-case scenario, universal healthcare will have to happen state-by-state. Yet, my optimistic side believes that somehow we will be able to put enough pressure on the federal government for it finally to take social responsibility for all of its residents.

Healthcare and North Carolina

FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have some great news about the healthcare situation in North Carolina that I recently discovered this week! It's amazing! The current healthcare statewide crisis if finally starting to brighten up! The following is a description of what is happening! Woo-hoo North Carolina!

The state of North Carolina has slowly been joining this political progress in healthcare reform. During the 2007 session, on March 20, 2007, the General Assembly of North Carolina passed the health reform bill H.B. 901, a.k.a. “Health Care for All.” This bill is an act that will “amend the North Carolina constitution to recognize the right to health care” (Universal Health Care Legislation, 3). Below is a description of the bill that was offered at this session.

Short Title: Health Care for All. (Public)
Sponsors: Representative Insko.
Referred to:
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT TO AMEND THE NORTH CAROLINA CONSTITUTION TO
RECOGNIZE THE RIGHT TO HEALTH CARE.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1. Article I of the North Carolina Constitution is amended by adding a new section to read:
“Sec. 38. Health care.
Health care is an essential safeguard of human life and dignity, and there is an obligation for the State to ensure that every resident is able to realize this fundamental right. Not later than July 1, 2009, the General Assembly shall provide by law a plan to ensure that by July 1, 2013, every resident of North Carolina has access to appropriate health care on a regular basis.”
SECTION 2. The amendment set out in Section 1 of this act shall be
submitted to the qualified voters of the State at the general election in November 2008, which election shall be conducted under the laws then governing elections in the State. Ballots, voting systems, or both may be used in accordance with Chapter 163 of the General Statutes. The question to be used in the voting systems and ballots shall be:
“[ ] FOR [ ] AGAINST
Constitutional amendment providing that health care is a fundamental right.”
SECTION 3. If a majority of the votes cast on the question are in favor of the amendment set out in Section 1 of this act, the State Board of Elections shall certify the amendment to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State shall enroll the amendment so certified among the permanent records of that office.
SECTION 4. This act is effective when it becomes law. (Universal Health Care Legislation).

The following is the history of this bill thus far in the State House:

03/19/2007:
[H]
Filed

03/20/2007:
[H]
Passed 1st Reading

03/20/2007:
[H]
Ref To Com On Rules, Calendar, and Operations of the House
(“North Carolina General Assembly--House Bill 901 Information/History, 1).

With this bill, we are on our way to improve the healthcare coverage situation for all residents in North Carolina! Let's hope that the state legislature keeps up this fantastic work!!!!