TIGblogs TIG | TIGblogs GROUP TIGBLOGS LOGIN SIGNUP
Rosemary Melnyk - My Blog
Rosemary Melnyk - My Blog


Canadian in Guantánamo Bay
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

The recent release of the video showing Omar Khadr talking to a Canadian Intelligence agent left me thinking. The video, filmed in 2003, showed Khadr at the age of 16 being interrogated but not helped. He is a Canadian citizen and a minor at that. In the video, Khadr was constantly asking to be helped but no one was listening to him.

I recently turned 17 and therefore am pretty close to the boy's age. While he is in prison being tortured, I am back in Canada thinking about non-trivial things such as what I'm going to wear for that day, or what the latest gossip is on Facebook. When I saw the picture of Khadr, I instantly recognized the face. It was so similar to all the boys at my school. The ones I see everyday, talk to, and make jokes with. What if they were one day gone and sitting in a prison miles away? While I can only wonder, the family and friends of Khadr are experiencing it.

I can't even imagine living away from the people I know. But then Khadr has been doing just that for the past 6 years. I just can't seem to wrap my mind around it. How could the Canadian government allow this? I'm not sure if he has been rightly convicted but Khadr should still be allowed to be detained in his home country.

Another thing that I'm curious about is Khadr's mention of the wounds he still has on his torso. I recently watched the movie 'Sicko' by Michael Moore. In it, he describes the poor health care the people of the US receive. But he also reveals that the people who have been detained in Guantánamo Bay have much better health care. So if the adults responsible for the deaths of many lives can get better health care than the average American people, why can't our underage Canadian boy get the same attention?


The article can be seen here.

July 15, 2008 | 10:18 AM Comments  0 comments

Tags:


UN Taking Staff Out of Darfur
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

During a recent scan of the BBC's website I noticed an article talking about how the United Nations is taking some of it's staff out of Darfur. The article can be seen here. The reason for the evacuation was said to be because the leader of Sudan was accused of genocide and too many UN personnel were being harmed while working on location.

I think that there are two ways to look at the situation. One perspective could agree with the UN's decision and think that too many UN personnel are being harmed, even killed. It can be noted that on July 8, seven peace keepers were killed and 22 injured. And that's not what they came for. They came to help the people of Darfur.

However, this leads to the second perspective that says that these people did come to help the people of Darfur so if they get hurt, maybe that's what has to happen to get attention on the crisis that is going on.

July 14, 2008 | 1:46 PM Comments  0 comments

Tags:


Just an Introduction
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Hi everyone!

I am a new co-op student here at TIG and for the month of July I will have the privilege of working in the TIG office with the staff. I am about to start my second week here and I thought that I would use my blog to write about the experiences I will go through while I am here.

To start off, last week I'm not going to lie I was really nervous. What if the staff didn't like me? Or what if they didn't want to waste their time on a co-op student who was only going to be around for 15 days? However, as soon as I stepped into the office I knew that I had nothing to worry about. Everyone was really nice and I was personally introduced to everyone who was in that day.

Next, I was given a list of tasks I would be performing and I as my eyes scanned each job I was pleasantly surprised to see that I would be doing actual jobs. Unlike some of the other students in my co-op class who were only responsible for answering the phone and picking up coffee. At that moment I knew that this month was going to change my perspective on the journalism career for the better.

Some of my responsibilities in the past week were to pretty much get super comfortable with the website. Which took me practically all of my first day because I wasn't a TIG member before this opportunity arose. But I'm pretty confident with my navigation skills now. I spent the rest of my week researching companies that TIG had partnered with for various projects that I would be interviewing and coming up with questions to ask the staff for a staff blog I will be writing for.

However, one of the interesting things I experienced was an online training for the Mexico YouthForce Journalists. As I aspire to become a journalist later in my life I found this whole experience eye-opening. During the meeting, I learned that these journalists would be covering various parts of the AIDS Conference in Mexico this summer. They would be able to report on anything that interested them in any media form they chose. Some of the choices they had were writing, podcasting, and filming. The experience these youth journalists are going to receive is incredible. I found myself becoming quite jealous of their position. The meeting definitely left me wanting to go out and find opportunities such as this.

This week, I will be interviewing two staff members on their experience at TIG which will be posted on a staff blog. I also will be interviewing representatives from Peace Child International, Global Youth Action Network, and Youth Voices. These interviews will help relaunch the organizations portion of the TIG website. So be sure to check out that section in the next couple of weeks.

That's all for now, wish me luck!

Rosemary

July 14, 2008 | 12:58 PM Comments  2 comments

Tags:




Rosemary Melnyk's Profile

Rosemary Melnyk's Friends


Latest Posts
Canadian in...
UN Taking Staff Out of...
Just an Introduction

Monthly Archive
July 2008

Change Language


Friends
Adam MacIsaac
Adham Tobail
Atta ur Rehman Qureashi
Chelsea
Emily Briggs
Incia Zaffar
Kirsten


6450 views
Important Disclaimer