How Group 19 Works How Group 19 Works
Group members at the December 2001 meeting
Group 19's work is organized around four goals:
Amnesty's human-rights work combines central direction and grass-root initiatives. Group 19 members take turns serving for one year as the group coordinator. He or she receives a monthly mailing from AIUSA's national office in New York. The mailing describes the plans and opportunities for current and future work. In group meetings, we select the cases and campaigns for group actions.
Case coordinators work with AIUSA's country co-ordination groups, which are made up of experts who specialize in the geographic areas where the cases are located. Group members participate by developing strategies, conducting research, and carrying out actions. In the past, Group 19 has been extremely successful in seeing its adopted prisoners released.
Group 19 generally will take on a project if the project is within Amnesty's mission and a member is willing to champion the project. Thus, if there is an area or an issue that particularly interests you, let us know, and we may be able to find a case that you can work on. Experience is not necessary; persistence, imagination, and willingness to learn will make you an effective activist.
We publicize Amnesty's work in our community. You can help to make AI's presence known. If you know someone at a local newspaper, radio station, or TV station interested in human rights, introduce us to him or her. If you know some public place where we can display Amnesty literature (e.g., libraries), tell us, or even better, volunteer to make sure that corner of your world is well-stocked with Amnesty brochures. If you belong to an organization, such as a church, that may be interested in AI's work, contact us and we'll put you in touch with the part of AI that works with such an organization. When you see a news item that relates to Amnesty's work, call us or send us the news clipping so that we can follow up on it.
Ever since Ginetta Sagan founded Group 19 in the 70s, Group 19 has a tradition of spawning new groups and helping other groups to become more effective. We co-adopt prisoners with other groups; we write letters and gather signatures for other groups; we help other groups raise funds by providing T-shirts that we obtain in bulk, and we produce and share with other groups useful Amnesty resources.
Group 19 spent thousands of dollars organizing events, sending out mailings, fulfilling our pledge to AIUSA, seeding money for fund-raising projects, and on other miscellaneous expenses. If you have ideas that may produce revenue (and raise the visibility of Amnesty at the same time), bring them to the meetings. You can also help by selling T-shirts and tickets to benefit events, organizing rummage or garage sales, and tabling at fairs and public places.
Group 19 is blessed with many talented and dedicated members. Still, we need fresh ideas and new perspectives to become even more effective. If you have not yet volunteered yourself, come to one of our meetings. Join us in a cause that we all believe in.