“Your Voice, Our Stories”: Launching the New Student-Led Blog, Human Writes

The Human Rights Program (HRP) is excited to announce the launch of Human Writes, a new student-led blog that focuses on human rights issues and topics! Human Writes is a platform for human rights analysis and advocacy, supported by the HRP and organized by its Undergraduate Working Group. It is an outlet for the members of the student community to express, address, and advocate for issues pertaining to human rights, encouraging students to engage in critical human rights work.

The Human Writes project has been a year in the making. In 2023, HRP Director Dr. Carrie Booth Walling first raised the idea of a student blog centered on human rights issues with the HRP Undergraduate Working Group. At that time, the Working Group was in its first year, comprising only three students—Madison Plemens-Schunk, Libby Nemitz, and Sakiya Mohamed. Although small, the Working Group immediately jumped on the project and started tossing around ideas, with Plemens-Schunk proposing the blog’s name, Human Writes. Throughout the 2023-2024 academic year, Nemitz worked to develop the blog’s submission guidelines and formulate a target scope and theme with input from Sakiya Mohamed and undergraduate fellow Taylor Laube-Alvarez. During the summer of 2024, Laube-Alvarez designed the first drafts of the website layout, allowing Nemitz to begin building the blog website in the fall semester of 2024 with help from other HRP staff. 

The Human Writes blog stands as a testament to UMN students’ hard work, diligence, creativity, and dedication to platforming student voices. Through the blog, the Human Rights Program hopes to spotlight student perspectives on local and global issues. This year, the Undergraduate Student Working Group expanded to thirteen members, including a dedicated team focusing on promoting the blog and providing feedback and perspectives on student submissions.

Human Writes accepts submissions on a rolling basis. If you are interested in submitting, please visit our page on submission guidelines. Human Writes accepts a range of written work, including blogs, personal essays, short fiction, poetry and more. Any UMN student from any college or major may submit a piece to be published on the blog and featured on our social media accounts. We welcome and encourage writers to become regular student contributors!

The Human Writes team hopes the blog will become a trailblazing platform for human rights on campus. We invite you to tune in, learn from student perspectives, and join the conversation for change.