Throughout this week, the fifth annual Human Rights Awareness Conference will allow UW-Eau Claire students to get up close and personal with worldwide issues, according to event coordinators.

Organized by the combined efforts of the Student Life and Diversity Commission and Eau Claire’s chapter of Amnesty International, the multiple events aim to increase students’ awareness of human rights issues throughout the world, said junior Lisa Huftel, director of SLD.

“I just hope that this campus will take advantage of these opportunities of the speakers and … presentations that are coming,” she said. “I think this campus is quite tolerant of various human rights issues. I want them to be accepted though. I think there’s a major difference between tolerance and acceptance.”

With “Our World Is Changing” as the conference’s overall theme, nine presentations will be available throughout the week. Student Senate opens the week with its presentation of “It’s Your Body. Pay Attention. Period.”

Other organizations presenting throughout the week include The Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender-Straight Alliance, Peer Diversity Educators and Students for a Sensible Drug Policy.

With such a large mass of groups, organizing the week-long event was no easy task, Huftel said. In the previous four years, SLD had staged its own conference, but Huftel said pairing with Amnesty International allowed for more campus organizations to participate and to turn what was once a two-day event into four.

Junior Kelly Marie Anderson, president of Eau Claire’s Amnesty International chapter, agreed about the scope of the conference.

Working with Amnesty since high school, Anderson said she hopes the events will open fellow students’ eyes.

“I don’t think people know that people are in prison for their religion, sexual orientation (or) wanting to just voice their opinion about their government.”

Students should know what is occurring in the rest of the world, she said.

To help achieve these goals, Amnesty International recruited the week’s keynote speaker, Cecilia Zarate-Laun, who will speak Wednesday on the escalating war in Colombia.

Amnesty also will sponsor Jamnesty, a human rights benefit concert that will cap off the week’s events Thursday night.

The expansion of events and organizations from previous years is a trend Huftel hopes will continue in the future.

“I hope with each passing year this conference will just become more widespread,” she said, “that the ideas will continue to expand and include new and current topics.”