Our next monthly meeting will be on Tuesday 9th May at 7:30pm in The Quaker Meeting House, Bath Place, Taunton – all welcome. If you’d like to join remotely via Teams then please email amnestytaunton@gmail.com and we’ll send you a link.
Hope to see you there!
As part of the April Amnesty campaign, Football Welcomes Refugees, our Taunton group took a stall to Taunton Town Football Club’s game against Weymouth on Tuesday 25th April. We had an overwhelmingly positive response, people coming up to the stall to sympathise and offer support, taking leaflets and stickers. We also met Zealand Shannon, American ‘football influencer ‘ on YouTube, who came to find out more about Taunton FC. He was very sympathetic to our initiative and said he had donated a sum to Amnesty during the World Cup.
All in all a worthwhile venture and one we hope to repeat next year.
Refugee Week is a time when we can all celebrate the contribution refugees make to the UK. The theme of this year’s event is ‘Imagine’, and most activities will take place online this year.
To find out how you can take part, have a look on the Refugee Week website. There are films to watch, writing workshops, book launches, virtual exhibition tours and much more.
Our meeting in December was transformed into a Write for Rights event, held by kind permission at St Mary’s Church, Taunton during their Saturday Coffee Morning on 8th December.
Every December Amnesty International worldwide picks 12 people or causes who are suffering persecution in some form, and writes to them and to the authorities in their country. Last year people in 208 countries sent 5.5 million letters, cards, emails and social media posts. More than 430,000 helped to protect Chinese housing activist Ni Yulan; nearly 875,000 demanded the release of 11 human rights activists in Turkey – all are now free!
On Saturday visitors, including the Mayor of Taunton and her consort, came to our stall and signed cards. This year’s campaign supports women all around the world who do extraordinary things to protect human rights, including Pavitri Manjhi, harassed for standing up to big business in India; Atena Daemi, jailed for speaking out against the death penalty in Iran; and Seyi Akiwowow, bombarded with online abuse for speaking up in the UK.
If you’d like to write to any of the people in this year’s Write for Rights campaign you’ll find all the details here.
We meet on the second Tuesday of the month at 7.30pm in the Friends Meeting House, Bath Place – all are welcome.
Sat 23rd June 5–9.30pm
The Great Get Together: The Great 1978 Picnic, at Longrun Meadow, Wellington Road, Taunton (between Tesco and the College).
In memory of Jo Cox MP and in celebration of her belief that we have more in common, a Great Get Together event in association with Taunton Amnesty. Come along and bring a picnic. You can even dress up and imagine it’s 40 years ago, June 1978! Listen to music from the 1970s eg Abba, Fleetwood Mac, Bee Gees, Kate Bush, David Bowie, The Clash, Joni Mitchell, Al Green, T Rex, Led Zeppelin, Donna Summer, ELO and many more. From pop, disco, folk and soul to glam rock, new wave and punk. There will be a 1978 quiz. Family friendly. Voluntary donation of £1 or more to Amnesty International. https://www.greatgettogether.org/
Sat 23rd June 5–9.30pm
The Great Get Together: The Great 1978 Picnic, at Longrun Meadow, Wellington Road, Taunton (between Tesco and the College).
A Great Get Together event in association with Taunton Amnesty. Come along and bring a picnic. You can even dress up and imagine it’s 40 years ago, June 1978! Listen to music from the 1970s eg Abba, Fleetwood Mac, Bee Gees, Kate Bush, David Bowie, The Clash, Joni Mitchell, Al Green, T Rex, Led Zeppelin, Donna Summer, ELO and many more. From pop, disco, folk and soul to glam rock, new wave and punk. There will be a 1978 quiz. Family friendly. Voluntary donation of £1 or more to Amnesty International. https://www.greatgettogether.org/
Instead of its usual monthly meeting in December, the Taunton Amnesty Group is holding a Write for Rights stall at St Mary Magdalene Church, Church Square (off Hammet Street), Taunton TA1 1SA, on Saturday 9th December from 10am–2pm. Please come along and sign a greetings card to a prisoner of conscience.
Light refreshments available in Magdalene’s Coffee Shop.
We hope to see you there!
On Wednesday 27th September we are teaming up with Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre, Taunton to stage Amnesty’s I Welcome photo exhibition alongside a theatre performance of Twist.
Twist is the story of one boy’s search for home among the nameless millions they call ‘migrant’. In a radical adaptation of Dickens’ classic novel, Chino Odimba and Theatre Centre transform Oliver’s struggle for sanctuary into a modern tale framed by the global phenomenon fast defining the 21st century.
Amnesty International’s I Welcome exhibition features compelling photographs that allow us to glimpse the individual stories behind today’s global refugee crisis and those of earlier years. The exhibition will be staged in the Tacchi-Morris foyer for people to see before and after the play.
For more details about Twist and to book tickets please see the Tacchi-Morris website.
A selection of some of the books we are donating to Taunton Library.
To mark Human Rights Day on Saturday 10th December, the Taunton Amnesty Group is donating a range of books on human rights and related topics to Taunton Library. There will be a display of some of these books in the library from 10th December – do go along and borrow one of these thought-provoking titles to show that Taunton cares about human rights!
Also on Saturday 10th December we will be holding a Write for Rights event from 10am to 2pm in St Mary Magdalene Church, Taunton. We’ll be writing greetings cards containing messages of support to prisoners of conscience across the world. Please come along and sign a card, which could help to change a life. Tea, coffee and refreshments available at the church coffee shop. We hope to see you there!
Please note: we are not holding our usual monthly meeting on Tuesday 13th December.
Amnesty International Taunton Local Group 