Speeches

Luis Ubiñas Opens Beyond Conventions Forum

Good morning. Welcome to the Ford Foundation, and welcome to “Beyond Conventions,” a day for reimagining human rights in a time of change.

This is the third in a series of gatherings that mark the Ford Foundation’s 75th anniversary of working with visionary leaders and organizations around the world.

This room is filled with people who every day save lives, change the world, demand a more just existence—an extraordinary cross-section of dedicated human rights and civil rights leaders. I have to say, for me, it is humbling to be among you.

These 75th anniversary conversations have been all about the future—where the next frontlines of change are emerging, and how we, at Ford, can support new ideas and new movements in this new century. But today, before we look forward, I’d like to look back into Ford’s illustrious past, because human rights have been at the very core of this institution’s work for 75 years.

It was in this building in the late 1970s that the idea for Helsinki Watch first emerged in a conversation between program officers and rights advocates. In the 1990s, the very first dollar that flowed into the International Center for Transitional Justice came from the Ford Foundation. And in recent years, our support for rights advocates and civil society organizations in North Africa proved vital investments that helped keep democratic values alive.

There has been a lot of change in philanthropy over the last year, but I want to tell you something: The Ford Foundation’s support for the human rights movement internationally, and the civil rights movement domestically, is unwavering. Let me also say, that as pillars in the fight for social justice, you represent our highest aspirations.

We look forward to supporting you as we strive toward our next generation of human rights accomplishments. We are here for you, and our support for you will only grow.

Now let me look forward. Let me briefly talk about to two new things we are investing in. The first is a new generation of digital human rights organizations. Crowd sourced change, change driven by the immense power of today’s technological transformation. A force for change unimaginable a decade ago, which is simply a part of the day-to-day lives of the next generation of human rights leaders.

The second area of new, deep investment is a vast effort to strengthen human rights organizations in the Global South—bringing new voices into the movement in order to bring attention to issues sooner, to deepen the movement, to add points of pressure. So, why does this work matter so much to Ford? The importance of this work—the power of human rights to improve the human condition—at this point is without question.

Who would have thought in the mid 1980s that the military dictatorships of Latin America would be transformed into thriving democracies in just one generation or that Eastern Europe would pierce the Iron Curtain and be restored to freedom? Who would have thought just five years ago that today, across North Africa, political authoritarianism would come under profound challenge? That we can say all these things is a testament to what the rights movement has achieved in the last 50 years. Yet the human rights community has never been one to rest; and today is no different. For all of our success, we know that the most vulnerable citizens—indigenous peoples, Afro-descendents, the LGBT community and in many countries, women and girls—of the world remain one step behind.

We continue to see persistent oppression, discrimination, and denial of human dignity even in countries that are nominally considered to be democratic nations. We also need to remember that abuses aren’t just a thing we find in poor countries, southern countries. Here in the United States—from the immigration detention camps in the West Texas desert to the island prison a few miles from here on Riker’s—a population bigger than that of some countries is being held in conditions of documented abuse.

We must ask ourselves:

• How is the human rights movement addressing today’s most significant abuses?
• How is it focusing on the poorest and most marginalized communities?
• How is it gearing itself toward the achievement of a new generation of real-world impact?

These are the questions we are challenged to address today.

So thank you all for being here and thank you for being part of this conversation. Now let me introduce the person behind Beyond Conventions, our vice president for Democracy, Rights and Justice, Maya Harris.

Media Contacts

Press Line

Tel

(+1) 212-573-5128

Fax

(+1) 212-351-3643

Email

pressline@fordfoundation.org

Joshua Cinelli

Media Relations Chief

Email

j.cinelli@fordfoundation.org