Article 26 Backpack

On behalf of UC Davis Human Rights Studies I am pleased to invite my University of California colleagues — faculty and graduate students — to participate in a series of conferences and symposia next year to explore the ways in which our research, teaching and public scholarship individually and through collaboration can confront violence, oppression and impunity; promote and protect fundamental human rights; and imagine and articulate radical solidarities that will foster just and lasting peace. Please follow the link below for more information on the work we are doing at UC Davis and learn about ways you can participate. UC Davis College of Letters and Science UC Davis Global Affairs UC Davis Public Scholarship and Engagement

At the heart of the Article 26 Backpack are the members of the Global Backpack Guide Collective. Drawn from UC Davis Human Rights Studies students, they build relationships with displaced and refugee young people globally to make the human-digital ecosystem work. Last night at the Davis Farmers' Market, we celebrated three graduating leaders of the collective, Kayla Garcia-Pebdani, Rai, and Stehlin.

When we began Backpack, we never imagined the role it would play in providing opportunities for professionalization in action, becoming the largest UC Davis College of Letters and Science -based experiential learning program...and they got our super-cool mug as a send off.

On a personal note, I'm so proud of these young people and know how much better the world is with them in it.

A decade ago today, with colleagues from the Institute of International Education, I met with university students in Lebanon displaced by the war in Syria. This group were a mix of Kurds, Palestinians and Syrians. The conversation, like all of the conversations I had with young people throughout Lebanon have stayed with me. Some of these young people had already gone far in their studies, finding work as medics or in informal schools for refugee children.

Others, like the Kurdish women were intent on returning to a free Kurdistan and building a democratic state. These conversations helped us call attention to the need to support and work with university student refugees and remove barriers to the human right to education; more broadly it demanded that we see the diversity in refugee populations as a policy problem. This work was the spark that 5 years later became the Article 26 Backpack

A few from that time I have been able to remain in contact with - primarily the ones who have done well by the metrics of university completion and employment. The others, I can't help but wonder what happened to them.

UC Davis Human Rights Studies UC Davis College of Letters and Science UC Davis Global Affairs