The Amnesty International Group has had a very productive year. We started it by focussing on the rights of refugees around the world.

Supporting the Build Hope Campaign we got the majority of our school to sign a petition demanding the immediate closure of the australian offshore detention camps. Following this we collaborated with the Dunedin North Amnesty Group and organised a small protest in front of the Otago Museum where we raised awareness and collected more signatures.

When this was published in the ODT, some of us got very lucky and were invited to the Otago University's Foreign Policy Conference on open and closed borders.

The local refugee situation has also been a topic at our meetings. Guest Speakers from the Red Cross came to talk to us explaining how the resettlement process of syrian refugees works nationally and locally.

For the Senior History Classes and interested students we hosted an event in which Jim la Rooy came to talk about his experiences as a little child in the Nazi occupied Netherlands.

Our biggest campaign, however, was the Freedom Challenge #NotInMyTrolley which protests against the human rights abuses at Palm Oil Plantations of the Wilmar Company. For this we once more collected signatures around the school as well as hosted a letter writing in which we wrote solidarity letters to those workers as well as to those companies that retrieve their Palm Oil from the Wilmar Company. A big photo action was also done during a lunchtime we're students could pose to show their support. A music video to advertise the campaign is in the making and will come out end of this year, so keep an eye out.