Amnesty International

Clubs & Societies

Edward: Hello everyone, welcome back to the first rendition of the Clubs and Societies Section this year for the Trinity Inquirer Edition 9. My name is Edward Peng and today, we’re interviewing the leader of the Amnesty International Society – Jay Cleland. Let’s go straight into the questions. So, the Amnesty International Society is relatively new, could you tell us what the club is about?

Jay: Well, the club is about raising awareness for human rights problems which can’t be fixed by clubs like Harambee. Harambee can raise money for an issue, Harambee can do things for an issue, but there are a lot of issues where you just can’t do anything. You can’t really do anything about the war in Ukraine, you can’t do anything about Afghanistan, but in the Amnesty International Society, you can raise awareness for it.

Edward: It’s good to hear that you are raising awareness of these issues and attempting to fill in these gaps in the school that haven’t been filled yet. So this intrigues me, what was the vision behind the club?

Jay: So back in 2021, my dad was working in Myanmar and the Myanmar coup d’état and civil war broke out. (Amnesty Presentation) So, I started following human rights around then, obviously, I was following COVID-19 before that. But, I started following more human rights then. Then, last year I moved to Brisbane Boys College and spent the year there. They had this massive Amnesty Club which I joined and was a part of, and that really made me enjoy the club and think about other issues. So, when I came back to Trinity at start this year, I was very keen on setting up a club because Trinity obviously didn’t have a club dealing with these issues.

Edward: Well, it’s amazing to hear that the club is already evolving in the short time it has been set up. Well, I want to know a bit about you, the interviewee, could you tell us a bit about your stance on human rights and what got you so passionate about raising awareness to certain issues?

Jay: Well, I went to Brisbane and heard about all these other issues, which made me very aware of just how little many people know. For example, a person might ask about the youth justice system and they might say “Oh yeah, that’s pretty bad.” However, if there were royal commissions, it’s all sort of done. But the problem is, it’s not. Just a few months ago in a Queensland Youth Detention Centre, a kid who was just 13 years old was locked in their cell for over 14 days straight, only being let out five times over a 36 day period, and the prosecution wasn’t even looking for any jail time for the person who locked the kid up, the defendant was just released with a verbal reprimand after trial. (Amnesty Presentation)

Edward: Are there any requirements to join the club? How would you join and why should you join?

Jay: The only requirement to join the club is that you’re able to sit down on a Thursday lunchtime and listen to conversations about human rights. I think it’s a great opportunity for everyone who can join to join, because, by definition, we are quite privileged. We go to school. Many people don’t. We also go to a private school which makes us even more privileged, so sometimes we can be sheltered from other events outside of the school. It’s a great opportunity to learn about things outside and also, it can be a great opportunity to develop your speaking skills because you are going to present to other people who are likeminded - they’re thinking about human rights. Also, it doesn’t matter if you show up once a term, once a month or even once a year. Even showing up once a year is a great opportunity because you get to learn about human rights issues.

Edward: Yeah nice. I can’t accentuate more how important it is to be knowledgeable around human rights issues. Jay already talked about many problems in the world and the knowledge you could get from being in this club. So Jay, how could they contact you to join the club?

Jay: They can show up in S22 any lunchtime to join or they can just email me at 635234@trinity.vic.edu.au to join.

Edward: Well, that brings us to the end of the interview. From an outside point of view, you are doing great things for both the club and the school, it has been a pleasure interviewing you and I hope the success of Amnesty International Club continues.