Theme: Indigenous Rights
“The Oak Institute for Human Rights, established in 1997, annually brings a prominent human rights activist to campus. While in residence, Oak Fellows get a chance to reflect, recuperate, and educate the Colby community about their work.
The 2022 Oak Human Rights Fellows are Michelle Cook and Ana Lucía Ixchíu Hernández. Both will join the Colby community for the Fall 2022 semester to raise awareness on issues of indigenous rights, and share the ways colonialism and the formation of modern nation-state borders have created mass human rights violations for indigenous peoples and made cultural survival increasingly difficult. Both activists will spend the semester reflecting on their work and sharing their perspectives on the human rights abuses that indigenous communities have endured for centuries.” – Oak Institute for Human Rights
Colby News: A Deeper Conversation with this year’s Oak Fellows!
Time lapse: Indigenous Rights in the Global Perspective course
“This course will explore aspects of the 2022-23 theme for the Oak Institute which is Indigenous Rights. Indigenous people and communities reside in every corner of the world, maintaining their livelihood, traditions, and culture on their ancestral lands. Colonialism and the formation of modern nation-state borders have created mass human rights violations for indigenous peoples and made cultural survival increasingly difficult. Human rights abuses towards indigenous communities are extremely prevalent. The activist’s work will focus on exposing violations such as forced assimilation, systemic racism, criminalization of protest, disappearance of Indigenous rights defenders, ecological exploitation, militarization of Indigenous lands.” -curriculum description