Riding Icarus (21 page)

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We work in two main ways: we try to make people aware of human rights and we oppose abuses of human rights.

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We have an active membership of over 550 youth groups. Youth groups are gatherings of young people in schools, sixth form colleges or youth clubs who meet to campaign for Amnesty International. They hold publicity stunts, write letters to government leaders and officials, fundraise, get publicity in their local paper, hold assemblies and create displays. You can also join as an individual member and receive magazines and letter-writing actions.

If you would like to join Amnesty International or set up a youth group, or simply find out more, please telephone our Education and Student Team on 020 7033 1596, email
[email protected]
or visit our website.

Amnesty International UK, The Human Rights Action Centre, 17–25 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EA. Tel: 020 7033 1500
.

www.amnesty.org.uk

“It is difficult to explain how greatly our life changed after that first postcard. I never felt lonely any more… Every letter was a miracle – they changed my life, they gave me hope. And I think the correspondence saved my mother from having a nervous breakdown or from total despair.”

Marina Aidova
, who was eight years old when her father was arrested and imprisoned by the Soviet authorities. Amnesty International asked its members to write to Marina and her mother Lera
.

“Amnesty’s greetings cards really helped me in prison. In total, I received more than 4,000 – amazing! I read each one: the best, I think, were those from children and other student activists… It amazed me to see that those children know about human rights. What a good omen for the future!”

Ignatius Mahendra Kusuma Wardhana
, an Indonesian student who was arrested at a peaceful demonstration in 2003 and spent more than two years behind bars, where he was beaten and threatened
.

“It is impossible to paint an accurate picture of [my] reactions as I sat in that tiny cell, the floor carpeted with cards and envelopes, generated through Amnesty’s efforts. It was deeply touching, greatly encouraging and strengthening… I knew that I was not alone… Maybe you just send one card – but all of these cards are like little drops of water that combine to create an avalanche of pressure… It was so moving. I gained such strength from them. I knew I had committed no crime and now I knew the world also knew why I was in prison.”

Chris Anyanwu
, Nigerian journalist and Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, imprisoned in 1995 and released in 1998. Nine thousand cards were delivered
.

It was meant to be like coming home. All her life, Safi’s parents have dreamt of returning to Grandpa’s native village in Crimea. But exchanging their sunny Uzbek house for a squalid camp is more like a nightmare. Will the return to a country where no one welcomes them tear Safi’s family apart, or can this strange land ever become home?

A compelling story about the Crimean Tatars’ struggle to reclaim the land from which they were exiled in the Second World War.

Lily Hyde is a British freelance writer and journalist based in Ukraine. She has been covering cultural and social issues in the former Soviet Union for several years, and her journalism and travel writing has been widely published in the international press.

After graduating from university, a childhood fascination with Russian fairy tales led Lily to travel around eastern Europe where she discovered that fairy tales aren’t always true, but the reality is even stranger and more magical. She was inspired to write her first novel,
Riding Icarus
, by the places she has been and the people she has met. She says, “I love listening to people’s stories, trying to understand what they dream about, what makes them tick; wondering what our lives would be like if I’d been born in their place and they’d been born in mine.”

Books by the same author

Dream Land