“Voices of Idaho” Podcast

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.

Eleanor Roosevelt

March 27,1958 4Remarks at United Nations
Commission on Human Rights

Hosted by Dan Prinzing, Wassmuth Center Executive Director, and produced by Adam Thompson, “The Voices of Idaho” was created to provide a voice and spark a discussion about the education programming of the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights.

The Center’s mission is to promote respect for human dignity and diversity through education and to foster individual responsibility to work for justice and peace. The Center achieves this mission by providing educational programs for teachers and students, engaging in community leadership and supporting the advocacy for human rights. The Wassmuth Center’s education work reflects the initial charter that guided the creation of the Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial – the most effective way to foster positive, lasting change is to prepare youth to be responsible stewards of human rights.

The goal of “The Voices of Idaho” and the Center’s “Faces of Idaho” poster series is to provide both a “voice” and a “face” to the human rights issues and/or challenges in Idaho. Etched in the stone of the Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial, Eleanor Roosevelt reminds us,

“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places close to home, so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: the neighborhood he [she] lives in; the school or college he [she] attends; the factory, farm, or office where he [she] works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.”

Season One of “The Voices of Idaho” engages listeners in interviews / personal stories that serve to illuminate the Center’s “Spiral of Injustice” and “Be an Upstander” programming.