"If people can learn to hate …they can be taught to love.” (Nelson Mandela)

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:00:00
This podcast was recorded on the ancestral lands on Treaty One territory, the traditional territory of the Anishnawbe, Cree, Oji Cree, Dakota, and the Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis nation. 

Voiceover 00:00:00
This is Humans, On Rights. A podcast advocating for the education of human rights. Here's your host Stuart Murray.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:00:00
Nelson Mandela said that no one is born hating another person. People must learn to hate. And if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love. For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. The International Day of Education is January 24, and so I thought it would be important to talk to somebody who has a background in education and is studying human rights. And that's why I am delighted to invite Mitchell DeFehr to this episode of Humans on Rights. Mitchell. Welcome to Humans on rights.

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:01:10
It's good to be here. Thank you so much for having me, Stuart.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:01:13
So, Mitchell, just quickly, we're going to talk a little bit about your background. But just to put it into context, you have a Bachelor of Arts in Peace and Conflict Transformation, and you got that as a graduate of the Canadian Mennonite University. But you currently are studying or getting your Masters of Human Rights at the University of Manitoba. And while you're doing that, you are also the Education coordinator, I should say, at Morrow, which is, of course, an acronym for the Manitoba Associations and Rights and Liberties. So your current position is Education coordinator, I should say, Mitchell, at the Manitoba Association of Rights and Liberties or MARL, is that correct?

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:01:56
Yeah, that's right. I'm currently still a student in the process of graduating, coming up to those final stages and then also working full time at MARL.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:02:07
Perfect. So obviously you have been a great assistant in an Asset and tremendously helped to the Hub and to me personally in my sort of learning journey around human rights. Let's kind of talk about you and you're growing up. You're in Manitoba, you grew up in Winnipeg or not in Winnipeg, but you grew up in Manitoba. Where is your home?

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:02:27
Yeah, I grew up just outside of Winnipeg. I guess we moved when I was in grade One. Used to live in Valley Gardens area and then moved just outside of Winnipeg to St. Paul. And so, yeah, I went to school in North Kildorian. That's where a lot of my friends are from. I still know and still hang out with a lot of those people. So, yeah, that's been awesome to stay in contact with people who you've kind of known your whole life. And I think that's such a special relationship, especially when sometimes you talk about human rights and having those hard conversations. But when you have a relationship with someone for so long, there's sort of this understanding and this capacity to really listen in because you have such a far back relationship. But, yeah, grew up in the Winnipeg, Manitoba boy.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:03:14
So Mitchell just on that and you kind of talked about friendships and having those relationships. At what point in your education, when you're in high school, what point did you sort of get interested and think that human rights or conflict or transformational relationships is something that you would like to further your education on?

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:03:36
For me, it was more of a discovery. I've always been really jealous of people who in high school I had friends who were like, this is what I want to do. And they went out and they did it and they knew what they wanted and they had a plan and they followed their plan. For me, the story of my life is things have never really turned out that way for me. Sort of been discovery through different inquiries and explorations. So in high school, I don't think I would have believed anyone if they had told me this is where I would be right now. I originally was wanting to study business and very quickly changed course from that. Didn't want to do that until then. I had dropped out of university for some time, just wanting to travel and had met up with some friends and a cousin of mine who had always been sort of a role model and then went back to school at CMU to actually study philosophy. And then that wasn't really for me either. And I just kept taking courses in peacebuilding and conflict transformation because it was interesting to me. And the part for me where things really started to change is when I started to understand systems and structures in the ways that they intentionally and unintentionally marginalized and can give some people privilege at the expense of others. And when I started to understand those things, I wanted to know more, mostly out of a sense of discomfort mostly is what it was. It wasn't comforting to know that these things are happening. And for me, for most of my life, going about it unaware of these things and then wanting to know more. And then it sort of ended up where I was talking to the academic advisor and they were like, you know what? You are so close to a degree in conflict transformation. And so it was more of a practical thing where it was like, you're really close to this. I didn't even know actually, originally that I had the most credit in those until it was told to me. And then once I declared it officially, in the formal sense of school, I sort of declared it for myself personally. And then I really started engaging with that work. And then that's where this whole idea of human rights, I started wanting to know more about that, more about these systems that can lift some others up and at times keep others down. And just wanting to know more is mostly where it came from. But it was really a path that had a lot of twists and turns and a lot of key people along the way and really good conversations where I had sort of discovered that that's sort of where I want to go. And I still find myself just trying to embrace as much as possible this idea of discovery and just kind of going out and figuring it out.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:06:27
So Mitchell, when you talk about maintaining relationships with some of your friends that you went to high school on, do you have conversations with them about systems that elevate people or systems that kind of oppress people? Do you share those or do your friends have the same views or how do you when you get to sort of hang out? I mean, not that you get into heavy conversations. I'm sure you'd like to talk about hockey as well, but those are important conversations to you as a person, particularly what you're studying. Are you able to engage some of your friends in some of these conversations? And if you are, what responses do you get from them?

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:07:04
Yeah, I'm absolutely able to engage in those conversations. I think overall, for the most part, we don't talk about systems of oppression and anti oppressive frameworks. Most of the time we are talking about things that we share in common, like we have some poker nights and stuff like that. And that's a lot of times the topics of conversation. And the other day I actually helped a friend build a dog sled. They really wanted to try and build dog sled and their budget was $50. And so we ended up doing that one weekend and that was awesome. But interesting that you say that is through the process of doing that, we did end up having a conversation, came up about oppression of some groups. In that particular conversation was groups that are oppressed because of their sexuality. And I think in any time, if you kind of come in with an agenda in any type of ways, oftentimes just life gets in the way. And I don't know that I've ever intentionally come and there's lots of memes about there about how beware of anyone inviting you out of the blue for a coffee date or unless they confront you about something where you have this agenda and you're trying to convince someone of something. I think I'm really grateful for a lot of the people in my life, a lot of the friends that I have, because a lot of times I don't agree with my friends. It's great when we do, but just as a human being, you can't agree with everybody on everything. And there are some things that to me are non negotiable, but for the most part, the people in my life, and I'm fortunate to have them, are really interested in the conversation and really interested in understanding. And I'm grateful for a lot of really curious people in my life. Actually, just this past weekend, we were out with some friends, and we had this kind of exact conversation where you may be talking to someone who you disagree with, but when they're really curious to understand why it is, that you feel the way you do, even if they disagree with you. It sort of makes you feel like you feel kind of heard and you feel seen and you feel appreciated for who you are. More than just the opinion that you're saying or more than just a certain viewpoint. And I'm really grateful that all of the friends that I have in my family all sort of share this curiosity and wanting to understand why it is the way I might feel a certain way. It makes me feel good about myself. I feel heard, I feel seen, and I hope that I can do the same to others and not get too humid at times. I'm right human beings and really passionate about one thing and I hope that I can extend the same. I hope that they would see the.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:09:40
Same well, and I think that's a great way to continue and build on relationships, Mitchell. part of the challenge always is, particularly and I'm going to just sort of go back to when I was younger, that it seemed that there was always this desire to be right or wrong and always to try to prove your point that say, I was right and I'm trying to prove that you're wrong. And I've always learnt that when I was at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. That the notion, and this is when I talk to you about education of some of these issues, is that the education piece is not about being right or wrong, it's about respecting other people's points of view and being open to learning and being curious, as you say. And it's at some point even agreeing to disagree, but not on the basis of right or wrong. It's about perspective. And the one thing that I learned when I was at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and I'd like to see if you want to talk a little bit about the other, people kept saying, well, you should get to know the other. And that was a new expression for me because I didn't really understand what that is. Is that something that you talk with your friends or do you respect and understand that there's always the other out there and how do you approach people around those conversations?

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:11:08
Mitchell yeah, I think that that's a really important conversation to have and unpack. When I'm doing workshop, something that I've tried to do is preface every workshop with empathy. And for me, what I learned in conflict, transformation and peace building methods was understanding empathy in a deeper way. And so, talking about sympathy, I remember the first time a teacher asked us in university classroom, what's the difference between sympathy and empathy? And I had never thought of it. I didn't have an answer. And I felt like it was a term we use oftentimes, but I wasn't able to slap a definition on it. And some things it's okay to go undefined, but I was like, I should have a better idea of what I mean when I'm using these terms. And so they had sort of described in that class, we talked about sympathy as feeling sorry for somebody, but empathy is feeling sorry with somebody and empathy being the intersection of the self and the other. When those two things come together, you have empathy and you can feel with someone. And so oftentimes I've heard those sort of narratives played out when people talking about oh well, they think this and they think that. And often asking who is the they? What do we mean by that? Is that just a term we use when we're describing something other than how we feel or our perception of things? And what does it mean then to have empathy and bring the self and the other together? What sort of happens there? And that's something that for me, I feel fortunate to have in my life is a really diverse group of opinions that I've grown up with. Obviously in the Human Master of Human Rights program, we had these quizzes that we would take during class where it would kind of ask where do you stand? And lots of times it was a yes or a no. And of course, for most of them it depends sort of answer. But it's interesting that when you're forced to sort of stake a claim to something, it was also interesting that just because of the nature of the program, most people always agreed on one thing just attracts a way of thinking about, okay, who is the most vulnerable or most exploited here? And then interesting, then in some other circles I go to, the conversations are a lot different where they're not thinking through those things. There's different assumptions about the way the world is. And so then thinking about the intersection of the self and others, what does it mean to truly try and understand the other? What is it that makes it this person or that I'm deeming them the other? Like what is it? Is it their opinion, is it their value system and how can we bring those things together? So I can understand why it is that I'm seeing them as something different than myself, but yeah, that's something that is definitely easier to said than done.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:13:57
So in your journeys you studied whether it's taking peace and conflict transformation at the Canadian Mennonite University or as you currently are studying to get your your Masters of Human Rights at the University of Manitoba. Do you see some of the challenges that go along with the academics of learning about human rights and the lived experience of human rights? And so those people that have lived it versus learned it from a teacher or learned it from a book. Have you had any sort of interaction or interplay that you can share on that particular topic?

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:14:38
Yeah, I think that there's always sort of this idea of like there's theory and then there's practice. And I think that there's people who have lived experience and lived realities that may at times feel diminished by maybe this idea that this theory sort of trumps their lived experience. I think that those things definitely can be intention. I know for myself as a person of privilege, a lot of my lived experience is that of having opportunity and privilege. And so a lot of my understanding comes from learning of the lived experiences of other people and then seeing the ways that in an academic space like university, where we learn about different theories and different frameworks about the ways oppression manifests, you can see how those lived realities reflect the reality of the oppressive framework. You can see like, oh yeah, okay, I've learned the ways that systems can operate and that they may lift other voices up while silencing other ones. And then you can listen to the lived realities of people who are saying, it feels as though I'm silent. So in some ways they are intention, but in other ways they validate one another. I think there's an interplay between the two, for sure.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:15:56
You mentioned the word systems. I'd like to explore that with you. When you talk about systems that help to either oppress people or help to we shouldn't say help to oppress people, but actually do oppress people or systems that will lift people up, what do you mean by when you talk about systems that way?

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:16:15
Yeah, I guess systems, the way that I've understood it is sort of like the intersection of the policies and practices and procedures that are sort of abundant everywhere at sort of a grand scale and the way that they all interplay together. And so when systems are rooted or made up by if all the policies, practices and procedures are all being developed by one group of people, they're inherently going to favor that group of people. And so then there's groups of people who are excluded from those and it may be unbeknownst to the people who are creating them. Sometimes it's intentional. I mean, like in Canada there were some intentional policies and practices and procedures that were designed at systemic level to oppress indigenous groups on purpose. So that manifests in all sorts of areas of social life. So sometimes it's education, it can be in policing, it can be in all sorts of ways that we interact with the world all through the systems that we use to go about every day.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:17:15
I just think it's important because I've had conversations with other people on this podcast about systems and how you get involved to change systems and enact on that conversation. And have you been exposed, Mitchell, through any of your studies or any of the reading you've done or any of the practical experience you have about how and it's a tough question because it's not necessarily an easy answer. But the question is how do we change systems to ensure that those that are in place now that have by their design oppressed people, how do we change that to ensure that there is this constant conversation that we have around human rights, that we're all born equal and that we're all sort of made to be equal. And that's a great statement. It's just in fact, in human life not true. So from a systems perspective, how would you look at making those changes from your vantage point?

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:18:16
For me, it's something that I think a lot about and if I had the answer, I would definitely be staring it. But something I've been thinking about recently over the last few weeks is this idea of inside out or outside in change. And I know a lot of times talking about inside out change so going into like an organization or an institution and if you can do the right teaching and you can have the right education, you can change this institution that will then be able to impact the lives of other people within the institution. Even thinking about education systems. If you can go or an organization if you can go into this organization and you can have the right kind of training and then get everybody on board for these ideals, then everybody is in the organization and all of the staff can then go out and have this great idea of how to go out and change the world. And if you can get enough of them to do it, you can have the systems change. Then there's the other side where maybe it's outside and maybe organizations need pressure from the outside to say hey, you know what? We need a new group of people. We need some new ideas of who's at the table, who's making decisions. And then in that way the pressure to be coming from the outside in to make changes on institutions. I've been thinking about that. Like how can I help be a part of making change? Do I join an organization and work from the inside out? Or am I taking up space that somebody else should have? Or do you start an organization that puts sort of pressure on other organizations to say hey, what are you doing to meet these standards? What sort of anti oppressive frameworks are you implementing? And so I really don't know. I don't have an answer. I'm definitely interested in exploring it and trying to find positive ways to do it. For me, it's about human agency and increasing human dignity. And so I think that where can I go to do those things and how can we make sure our systems are increasing human dignity? And I think it's a good question to ask, but I also think everything that follows is a lot more complicated, and that's something I really hope to be a part of and keep trying. And sometimes I'm doing something and I realize maybe I've gone about it the wrong way or my energy might be better invest someplace else. And so I'm still discovering those things and trying to figure all of that out. Yeah, I'm not totally sure. I think lots of times when we do workshops for the youth, we talk about civic engagement and citizenship and what does that mean to be able to vote and to have democracy and suffrage? And one question we ask is, if the voting age is lowered to 16, what would that do for you? What impact would that make in your life to be able to have a say in what your world looks like at a policy level and that type of systems level? And then sometimes there's you'd say, well, that would make no difference because it doesn't matter who I vote for. We need to have other institutions and other groups of people making changes. And so in that way, when there's all these things going on at once, sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed and feeling like, is there any way forward? But I think that there's a lot of good things going on and a lot of different ways to get at that question of increasing human dignity. But, yeah, I don't have any straightforward.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:21:37
Answer, so Mitchell, I mentioned at the top of this podcast that January 24 is the International Day of Education, and of course, education is a human right. So I wanted to just get your sense. Do you see a difference between human rights education and human rights learning?

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:21:55
I think that they're definitely interconnected. I guess when I think about education, I was in my mind initially think of more of a formal school system, just probably because of the way I was grown up and the way it's been employed. That's how I sort of see it as something more formal. And learning, I see is more informal. But that's just my initial sort of reaction to hearing the different words. Probably has a lot to do with how I've kind of seen them growing up. Education has always seemed like that's what happens in school, and learning is something that always seemed like could happen in any kind of capacity. But that's just sort of my initial sort of reaction.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:22:34
One of the things that when you talk about human rights and education and it's bringing issues forward, do you think that peaceful protest is a form of human rights education?

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:22:45
I think so. I think that there's a lot that happens even leading up to protests, and that happens within them and a lot of learning that happens when we see them on the news. I think that there's a lot of educating that happens when you see a protest and even saying, like, what is going on there? And it almost immediately imposes a curiosity. You kind of need to know it's sort of in your face. Like, I need to understand what's going on in front of me. It may impede your task. Right. You're trying to get somewhere and you can't because maybe something's in your way and it's sort of like, now it's in your face, you need to now know what's going on. And of course, there are ways that those are sort of co opted and the message of protest sometimes gets distorted and stuff like that. But I think absolutely, it's a way of educating. And there's even thinking about theory. There's lots of theories on how to protest. What's the best way to protest? I read articles recently called Protest as Pedagogy. I wish I had taken more notes on it, but I think it would probably get out a lot of the questions you're asking to that point.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:23:50
And I think I know the answer to this, but I just want to go down this path for a second with you. Have you ever been involved in a peaceful protest or in a march?

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:23:59
I have been involved. I think ultimately I'd like to be more involved. One of the first ones I went to was the climate march. That was like years ago, when they did high school, did the sort of day out walk out. And that one is in a lot of ways organized. And I think a lot of times when we do workshops, if you want to go towards ones that are maybe less politically sensitive, climate change is one that's kind of widely accepted as being an appropriate one. That's what I think is interesting, is then that one. Yeah, lots of times teachers will say, yes, absolutely. Yeah, that's important. We can all agree on this. That was like the first one I went to, and there was obviously so many people, I thought my cousins there, lots of my friends. And in a lot of ways, maybe it was more of a performance thing, just in that everybody was doing it, everyone was behind the climate change. I mean, of course not everybody, but it sort of seems that way. So that was the first one I went to, and I went with actually, the friend who I made that dog sled with. We went out to that one together and then I went to the Black Lives Matter. There was the one in Winnipeg, and I went to that one. And then I had gone to when maybe not so much a protest, but solidarity was when at the ledge during the war in Ukraine. But I've always thought about been really interested in protest. And I think just where I lived in my position of privilege, I was able to physically be distant from lots of the lots that happens in Winnipeg, downtown. And I physically lived really far from there and was able to always something sort of abstract. But yeah, those are sort of the ones that I've been to.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:25:51
I'm not sure how you see it, Mitchell, but talking today about the importance of education as a human right and so I don't know how the teachers felt that you take a day off of formal education in school to go out and protest on climate change. So you're really removing yourself from an educational institution to go out onto the street to create awareness about another area. I don't know. How did the teachers react when the students did that?

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:26:22
I'm not totally sure. I wasn't really communicating with too many of the educators during that time when I was there. I was in university at that time, and I already didn't have class that day. So for me it was easy to go to that one, which in a lot of places there's all of those questions of opportunity and privilege and stuff like that. I think that I saw a lot of teachers there with their students who even school buses that were sent from the school were sent to the climate change, climate justice. I mean, at the end of the day, if you're in an unlivable climate or ecosystem, you can't learn anything anyways. So I feel like it's one of those takes precedent over maybe some of those things you learned day to day. It's something that's important and I think you can learn a lot from it. And coming together as a group with your classmates and the other schools there and kind of acknowledge that this is something that matters to us and we want to work towards.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:27:23
Yeah, so let me just kind of switch gears a little bit to still on the education file. But as the education coordinator for MARL, the Manitoba Association of Rights and Liberties, what are you involved in, what are you working on and what sorts of education elements around human rights are you actively involved in there?

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:27:43
A lot of what we do is workshops with schools and sometimes with educators. And so we have a variety of workshops that we do. Some of them are like human rights fundamentals, which focus on knowing your rights. I think when you can learn your rights, you can kind of gain a sense of agency and knowing that knowing your rights also is an indicator of when maybe a right that you have is being met or an entitlement is being met. It may also point to some ways that you may be noticing other groups that have more opportunity and understanding those. So then conversations of power and privilege come in, and we have a workshop on power and privilege. We also have a workshop on climate justice where we talk about everything from different cases that youth are taking to advocate for their future. We talk about externalities and what that all means and how to go about what a better future might look like. And mostly just our kind of central goals are empowering. You giving them the tools they need and also just creating spaces where they can come together and network with one another and work towards things that they think are important. So not just us saying you should go work towards this, but trying to listen and be what are you hoping to see in the world that would increase your agency and how do you see that happening with educators? Most of what we do is learning about anti oppression and equity, have lots of equity conversation and then justice is sort of the kind of key theme that goes through all of those things.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:29:16
And how are you finding the reception that you get from the various students, various schools in these workshops?

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:29:23
That's something that's been so interesting to me is going into junior high classrooms and sometimes being met with blank stairs and just sort of is a new experience for me as teenagers that might not be so interested in having those conversations. Overall though, I think most students you just got to find the thing that they're passionate about and sometimes that's the greatest challenge and that's why we try to keep it open and have open ended questions where we can learn what the class wants to talk about and issues that are important to them. And then I find that very much like a life giving experience to find out what are you passionate about and let's talk about it. And for me then I feel I need to know a lot about the subject so that they can bring in any type of public that they want and even if it's not directly connected, I better hope that I know enough about it that we can have a meaningful conversation and learn from one another. And so when those conversations happen and you can see a classroom, everybody's paying attention and listening to one another. And I really love when in a classroom a student will say something and then go, yes, and then it will just be a series of yes and the whole way through, and that's awesome. And everybody's just adding value to what their peers are saying and everybody's learning from one another. And that's the best when that can happen in a workshop. So there's been times when we've made it to like we're kind of stuck technically we're only been on one side the whole class, but we've had this great conversation and for me that's the best. It's when everybody feels like they're a part of something and we're sort of co creating meaning in the room, all learning off one another and a lot of times the people's lived experience and then they're also adding like this is what I know. And so oftentimes students will be sharing their experiences and things that they know and it will sort of end up being things that were in the PowerPoint and will never technically get to the slide but we cover it all through conversation, and that's always my preference.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:31:25
Yeah. What's the biggest surprise you've had when you've had one of these workshops with students talking about human rights?

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:31:31
I think the most surprise there was was after a workshop, we have our evaluations where students can go in. We have a QR code, and you can scan it, and we give us feedback, which is great. Definitely appreciate that. But one student had come up to me after a workshop, and they said, do you take feedback? And I said, yeah, we've got the yard code right up there. You can scan it and send feedback and, like no, like right now. You can give it feedback right now if you want. And they had said everything that you said, and this is like a half day workshop, so it was like, over 3 hours. They said everything you said. I knew it already. Next time you come back, teach me something I didn't know. And I was pretty surprised, though, also, in my head, I was thinking, like, I don't remember ever learning about some of the things that we were talking about, but they said, don't buy a comeback unless you want to talk about nuclear power. That was a really humbling experience for me, and I was pretty surprised to hear that. I also thought it was yeah, it was fun, and I wasn't too offended by it, but I appreciated the honesty.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:32:41
Well, and that's part of it, right, is that, I think in the whole discussion mitchell around human rights is there's a lot of very difficult conversations in the sense that you want people to be engaged and you hope that they say things that are respectful. I'm not sure that that would fit in the respectful category. It's honest. The response you got is honesty. But I appreciate you sharing that because it just goes to really the core of human rights is education, and the more you can have conversations with people and learn and be open about human rights and challenges and opportunities, then hopefully we all start to figure out how this can, in fact, be a better world. But I would love it for somebody to be that brash. I mean, I would just say, and you probably know this, I've spent a bit of time in my life in politics, so that's a kind of lived everyday experience where you don't even ask for feedback and they give it to you. So it's a fair comment. Mitchell if people want to get involved or become more active in the community around human rights, what some advice would you give them?

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:33:56
There's a Human Rights Hub calendar that has some events on there and different organizations. I think there's a lot of organizations doing really great work, and sort of the purpose of the calendar from the purpose of the calendar is sort of creating a central space for all of those, and I think that was the trouble for me. When I was trying to find out how to get involved. I think most places are really receptive to having people volunteer and engage and be a part of their community, but sometimes it can be difficult to figure out where to find those places. And I know for myself, I always wanted to get more involved and really kind of show up with my physical presence. I think I was showing up a lot of times with words, but I wasn't showing up with my presence. And so I had sort of wanted to show up to marches and show up to protest, but I didn't know where to look for those things. And so I found community through my university right there's. Lots of universities have different clubs, and I know lots of high schools have different clubs around even the environment and climate change. I think that there's one high school we went to had a club that was about climate justice, and they had over 100 students in the club. So there's those sorts of different places that you can seek out and find. MARL has a youth committee that is looking for lots of people to join. And we have lots of different events that we put on that everyone is welcome to join. But it can be tough to find a community where people are passionate I guess it's not tough to find a community where people are passionate about human rights, but sometimes it's difficult to know where to look for those spaces. I think I send out sort of cold emails sometimes to organizations. Like I was saying, I can volunteer. I'd like to be involved, let me know where I can might be able to be kind of plugged in. And that's what I appreciated even in going to the Master human rights program was for me just googling like, where can I learn more about this? And then I found out there was a program about human rights.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:35:54
This is perfect.

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:35:54
This is what I'm looking for. And then through there I was able to find all of these other organizations that are doing really great work. And I think the Hub calendar is a place where you can see lots of those organizations. So even if it's an event from the past, maybe, that you obviously can't go to, but you can look through the organizations and see different ways that you might be able to get involved.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:36:15
Yes.

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:36:15
No.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:36:15
And that's great. And what I'll do is in episode notes, obviously I'll include contacts for MARL contacts for the Hub, just if anybody's listening so they can make reference to see where they want to go. Mitchell I enjoy our conversations. This one is a little bit different because this one is recorded, unlike the other ones that we've had in my office when you were helping me with the Hub. I want to leave the last word to you, though, and I want to get your sense of as you're going through your Masters of Human Rights at the University of Manitoba, what do you really want to look for in terms of your next move? What would you like to do? Where would you like to find yourself sort of leading the education side of human rights?

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:37:00
For me, the biggest learning that I had in my experience was understanding the way that systems were causing harm. And so I see that as a way I know that just because it works for me, it's not going to work for everybody else. But for me, that was a big part in really changing the core of how I saw the world around me. Before that, I kind of had the blinders on. I was just going about it and had empathy and wanted to understand more and a curiosity, but wasn't aware of all maybe how serious it was and the different ways that a lot of these things can be undone. And for me, that was the part that was really key in wanting to learn more is knowing, like, okay, well, these things have been done and there's groups that are suffering because of it, and some groups are lifted up at the expense of others. But there's a way of undoing these things and how can we undo those things? And so that's sort of, for me, piqued an interest in understanding how policy operates and how that can be used to sort of set precedent in how things ought to be done, because not everybody is tolerant of other viewpoints. So sometimes it can be exhausting trying to convince someone of I think that everybody probably has had an experience. Even if you're talking about your favorite kind of food, you're trying to tell someone like, no, this is the way it's got to be. This is the best thing. This is my favorite food. And it just doesn't seem that it's landing in any way. But to set precedent in that way to say, you know what, even though we may disagree, we need to agree on some common values and we need to make sure that we're protecting people who we've discovered are vulnerable. And so for me, I'd like to teach others about those ways, the ways that systems can oppress other groups. And so I feel fortunate to be able to do that sort of in my everyday work. Even the other week, we did a workshop on poverty and homelessness and we talked about all the different barriers that people who don't have a home face in their everyday life. And those are things that for me were a discovery. I didn't know those things before, and then once I knew them, it sort of becomes, okay, well, now that I know this, what can we do? How can we undo these things? How can we make things better and how can we we increase human dignity? So I think I'd like to continue that work and be a part of developing different practices and policies that are life giving for everybody, not just a few people.

Stuart Murray (Host) 00:39:24
Sounds like a great way to end a podcast conversation on the International Day of Education with respect to human rights. Mitchell DeFehr, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate your conversation and we will continue to be in touch. I know.

Mitchell DeFehr (Guest) 00:39:38
Thanks so much, Stuart. Thanks for having me.

Voiceover 00:39:41
Thanks for listening to Humans on Rights. A transcript of this episode is available by clicking the link in the show notes of this episode. Humans on Rights is recorded and hosted by Stuart Murray. Social Media marketing by Buffy Davey. Music by Doug Edmund. For more, go to humanrightshub.ca. 

Voiceover 00:39:41
Produced and distributed by the Soundoff Media Company.