Livewire - Amnesty International blogging for human rights

Evangelia Papada is in Kenya

Greetings from Nairobi, Kenya. The Demand Dignity campaign has officially been launched and we have switched on our campaign engines. Amnesty International has just released a report on informal settlements in Kenya and the Secretary General Irene Khan is here on a High Level Mission.

Jennifer and I arrived here a few days ago. Our aim is to engage the public, and predominately slum dwellers, in an SMS action.

We have trained over 70 volunteers from community-based organisations who, in turn, trained over a 100 of their peers on how to carry out the action. We are equipped with leaflets, postcards, and a video camera crew and our aim is to collect people’s voices.

We are simply asking people to send a free SMS to 3221 and tell the Kenyan Government what they think living with Dignity means. Their voices are automatically uploaded onto www.demanddignity.org where they meet the voices of thousands others from all around the world.

We will be visiting informal settlements in Nairobi. Find out where we are going in the next few days!