“We have to stand up for our rights...”

She established the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights in 1988 and this new project Voices Against Power is one of the foundation's latest initiatives to promote human rights.

Her father was a big defender of the civil rights of the Afro-American community and she says that she learnt about the importance of justice at a very early age at home. “And then, while at university, I began learning about the injustice in life and I realised that I could do something to change things,” she said yesterday. “We all have the power to create change and we are obliged to try and do so and that is the messages we hope to transmit to people with our Voices Against Power Project,” she explained.

The project involves teaching students and their teachers what human right are and who the people who are really doing something to defend them. “It's about trying to teach people that they too can make a difference and that can begin in the classroom,” she explained.
The project is going to be gradually introduced across Spain but it will be first launched here in Majorca. “The community on this island is so diverse with people from so many different countries living here, Majorca provides us with a bridge to take the project to other countries,” she said.

And, protecting human rights begins at home. She said the recession in Spain has brought about certain abuses of human rights such as the rights to housing and education. “Poverty is an abuse of human rights,” she added.