Article 26 Backpack

10/19/2024

One of the coolest things about UC Davis is our UC Davis Global Health/One Health Institute. It brings together human and animal health professionals to address complex problems at the intersection of humans, animals and environment. It one campus units genuinely committed to interdisciplinary research and action.

So I was surprised and pleased when Drs. Wilkes and Lucija Jurisic and UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine student Amalia Leuneng Solli asked me to talk about my work - including Article 26 Backpack - as part of their 11th annual One Health Symposium.

I used the opportunity of talking about the history and theory of forced migration and the shortcomings of the global refugee régime to challenge the students to imagine ways to balance their responsibility to with a obligation to and engage in "research as witness" to build support for human rights. I come away from the symposium with a renewed optimism that we can build into our various forms of professional training ways to engage in advocacy and policy within and beyond communities of practice. UC Davis Public Scholarship and Engagement UC Davis College of Letters and Science UC Davis Human Rights Studies

10/05/2024

As a good scout, I've earned many badges - this one has to be among my favorite. With Lauren Cegelski and help form the Article 26 Backpack Guide Collective, we are pleased to offer a microcredential from UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education. The course trains anyone to safely and effectively guide refugee and displaced young people in the best use of the UC Davis Backpack. Since we introduced the Badge in Spring, it has been earned by young people here in California, Thailand and Afghanistan. Follow the link in the comments to learn more and earn yours. UC Davis Public Scholarship and Engagement UC Davis Global Affairs

06/29/2024

The Spring/Summer edition of the official newsletter of the UC Davis Article 26 Backpack , Backpacker, Go! has hit the stands. Last night, our team shared information about our new Backpack Guide Badge Micro-credential, scholarship and support opportunities, a user survey, and a short bio of a Backpack Guide with over 5000 displaced and refugee young people, educators and allies in the Backpacker community. To the best of our knowledge, Backpacker, Go! is the only publication that has such a global reach - and is a modest demonstration of the way we work to break down the barriers of exclusion that confront the world's refugee young people.

As we watch the increasing digital divide in higher education access grow and exclude more and more humans in at-risk and vulnerable situations, at Backpack we work to reaffirm the fact that higher education is a common good and a human right. Refugee young people are not consumers to be exploited, nor is education a commodity. We learn through the response to Backpacker, Go! how not just the cost of education, but the path to getting back in is littered with costly and exploitative barriers, from application fees, pricey credential evaluation and transcript services, to language proficiency exams that can be the equivalent of a month's salary.

Follow the link below to the full edition.

UC Davis Global Affairs UC Davis College of Letters and Science UC Davis Public Scholarship and Engagement UC Davis Human Rights Studies

06/27/2024

On behalf of UC Davis Human Rights Studies I am pleased to invite my University of California colleagues — faculty and graduate students — to participate in a series of conferences and symposia next year to explore the ways in which our research, teaching and public scholarship individually and through collaboration can confront violence, oppression and impunity; promote and protect fundamental human rights; and imagine and articulate radical solidarities that will foster just and lasting peace. Please follow the link below for more information on the work we are doing at UC Davis and learn about ways you can participate. UC Davis College of Letters and Science UC Davis Global Affairs UC Davis Public Scholarship and Engagement

06/20/2024

"On it's important to think about how we can support communities that have been displaced, and undergraduate involvement in Backpack demonstrates that students have so much to share even as they learn."
Dheera Dusanapudi UC Davis Article 26 Backpack

UC Davis Human Rights Studies UC Davis Global Affairs

As of May 2024, 120 million people worldwide have been forcibly removed from their homes due to persecution, conflict, violence, and human rights violations. Today, on World Refugee Day, The Article 26 Backpack stands in solidarity with refugees across the globe, helping others to safely organize, s...

06/11/2024

UC Davis Human Rights Studies is pleased to share that Brooke Morey class of '24 and Human Rights Minor is this year's University Medalist - it's the UC Davis version of a class valedictorian.

Brooke is extraordinary, though she is very much like the hundreds of minors I've taught over the last decade+: they are at once as home in disciplinary fields as diverse as English or pre-med as they are in our courses on human rights in the Middle East, , or refugees.

It's the practical connection that the field of Human Rights Studies makes between history, climate change, art, and language with the everyday realities of atrocity, discrimination, and indifference to human suffering which attracts the kind of young person who is certain the world needs fixing and want to help.

Brooke will do wonderful things and make a difference - as I'm sure that other minors our program is sending out into the world will do. Important to me - as it should be to the rest of you - isn't that they become the next Amal Clooney, but rather that they bring the human rights idea - everyone has human rights simply because they human beings - into everything they do.

Good job Brooke. I'm proud of you.

UC Davis College of Letters and Science

One of the books in the “Magic Tree House” series for children takes a brother and sister to the Egyptian pyramids.Brooke Morey of Redwood City, California, was 8 when she joined the characters on that adventure and read the book’s nonfiction companion about the pyramids and mummies. “I was ...

05/30/2024

Here is excellence in UC Davis Human Rights Studies. Brooke Morey, a Human Rights Minor and an Anthropology Major, has been awarded the top undergraduate honor UC Davis can give: the University Medal. With Jumana Esau, she is the second program affiliated undergraduate to earn this honor; and last year Emma Tolliver won the Mayhew Award, the UC Davis College of Letters and Science's top prize.

I will always remember her coming to me after reading a memoir of a child survivor of the Armenian Genocide a few years ago. She had been deeply moved by the text and wanting to better understand how human rights advocates conduct their work without being paralyzed by emotions. It demonstrated to me that she was thinking at a level beyond where most undergraduates think about the challenges of human rights work and exploring how to address difficult and complex ideas as a professional while maintaining one’s humanity. This form of practical empathy is rare, and she has more of it than most.

Around Brooke's shoulders is a in solidarity with and her friends and colleagues demonstrating and encamped here on our campus. She will also be wearing an antique silver olive leaf broach to symbolize peace and human rights as she accepts the medal. Words are insufficient to share how proud I am of her.

05/30/2024

At the heart of the Article 26 Backpack are the members of the Global Backpack Guide Collective. Drawn from UC Davis Human Rights Studies students, they build relationships with displaced and refugee young people globally to make the human-digital ecosystem work. Last night at the Davis Farmers' Market, we celebrated three graduating leaders of the collective, Kayla Garcia-Pebdani, Rai, and Stehlin.

When we began Backpack, we never imagined the role it would play in providing opportunities for professionalization in action, becoming the largest UC Davis College of Letters and Science -based experiential learning program...and they got our super-cool mug as a send off.

On a personal note, I'm so proud of these young people and know how much better the world is with them in it.

05/07/2024

** Huge milestone day for the UC Davis Article 26 Backpack **

Thanks to Jackson Byiringiro, Olivier Mupenzi and the team Kepler Rwanda, the 5,000th young person has enrolled in Backpack! This means 5,000 university-age students from across the globe now have secure and safe access to their most critical academic documents (transcripts, diplomas, certificates, research).

More than just safe storage, Backpack fosters a global community that believes education is a human right, accessible to all, not a privilege for a few.

This milestone is just the beginning. Backpack is exploring expansion into Africa and Southeast Asia, adding languages like and .
..and if that weren't enough:

Under the leadership of Lauren Cegelski and Heavenly Frazier, and in collaboration with UC Davis Human Rights Studies & UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education, we've launched the Backpack Guide Badge. This free micro-credentialing program trains a new generation of Backpack Guides to support young people in navigating the digital education ecosystem.

Ready to join the movement?

Sign up for the free Backpack Guide Badge program by following the link below. UC Davis Global Affairs UC Davis College of Letters and Science UC Davis Public Scholarship and Engagement

04/28/2024

As the UC Davis Article 26 Backpack community grows to nearly 5000 Backpackers worldwide, it has become a powerful research tool for understanding the human rights needs of university students. Backpack Guides Dheera Dusanapudi, Lauren Cegelski, Heavenly Frazier, Fiona Ronne-Mcneil, and Natalia Stehlin used this year's UC Davis Undergraduate Education Conference to share their research into the daunting problem of the digital divide: as so much of contemporary higher ed - from classes to record keeping to admissions - goes online and is run by for-profit education, we are leaving many behind. Follow the link below to a recording of their presentation and a discussion of possible solutions.

Backpack has also emerged as UC Davis Human Rights Studies' premier global citizenship education program - with dozens of Guides around the world making it work. UC Davis Global Affairs UC Davis College of Letters and Science

03/19/2024

A decade ago today, with colleagues from the Institute of International Education, I met with university students in Lebanon displaced by the war in Syria. This group were a mix of Kurds, Palestinians and Syrians. The conversation, like all of the conversations I had with young people throughout Lebanon have stayed with me. Some of these young people had already gone far in their studies, finding work as medics or in informal schools for refugee children.

Others, like the Kurdish women were intent on returning to a free Kurdistan and building a democratic state. These conversations helped us call attention to the need to support and work with university student refugees and remove barriers to the human right to education; more broadly it demanded that we see the diversity in refugee populations as a policy problem. This work was the spark that 5 years later became the Article 26 Backpack

A few from that time I have been able to remain in contact with - primarily the ones who have done well by the metrics of university completion and employment. The others, I can't help but wonder what happened to them.

UC Davis Human Rights Studies UC Davis College of Letters and Science UC Davis Global Affairs

02/28/2024

There's three wonderful elements to this Spring's enrollments in UC Davis Human Rights Studies - the first is how many courses we are able to offer, from our giant first year , to our core upper-division Human Rights, a regional elective, senior seminar on in Latin America and a graduate offering in memory; the second is how full our courses are - over 250 UC Davis undergrads and grads are enrolled; and third, several of these are courses that I developed and are now being taught by colleagues - a very warmly welcomed development, indeed. At UC Davis we prepare more students to be our state's Human Rights leaders than on any other campus. Lucia Luna-Victoria Indacochea Charles Walker UC Davis College of Letters and Science