My name is Ruta Januleviciene and I will be your contact person for Human Rights group of the Big Connection. What does my heart say about the human rights? Human rights give us all the freedom to develop to our full potential & lead fulfilling lives. I would like that Human Rights would be fully implemented across the EU and the United States of America. Beyond making a difference in the world, human rights work will allow you to make a difference in individual people's lives, as well as work towards peace.

This topic is very interesting to me as I am a professional project manager with more than 17 years of experience in designing and implementing projects for socially excluded groups. I have seven years of experience conducting workshops with psychodrama warm-up elements, meditations, and hands-on exercises to know your physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual state and improve it. I use labyrinth therapy as a tool to reduce stress and improve quality of life. I am a Labyrinth facilitator for kids, adults, disabled people (especially those with Multiple Sclerosis), prisoners and ex-prisoners. I have experience leading programs face-to-face in public and closed high security places, online, locally, and internationally.

The last year my NGO “Ruta Reiki Mercar education and research institute” signed a voluntary cooperation agreement with the Prison Hospital (Lithuania) for three years to hold workshops with labyrinth therapy for two groups of convicts: the disabled group and the task force group once a month.

Right now I am an active volunteer for the Labyrinth Society organization. Since 2017 until now I am a Regional Representative to Lithuania of the Labyrinth Society. Since 2019 until now I took the role of the International Regional Rep Coordinator for TLS. Since 2021 until now I am a Project Chair of the Board of Directors at the TLS.

Why did you pick this social issue in particular?

Most of us are aware that we have human rights. However, not all of us know what they mean in a practical sense. How do human rights protect us? How do they interact with the law? And what happens when our human rights are violated?

I am here to answer all these questions and more, helping you have a better understanding of how your human rights serve you. We’ll be discussing the origins of human rights, why they’re so important, and what they all say. Then, we’ll talk about how you can take action on human rights issues.

How do we define human rights?

Human rights can be defined as fundamental rights that everyone is entitled to, purely on the basis that they are a human being. They’ve only existed formally for around 200 years – before that, there were no real laws to ensure people were treated fairly regardless of things like age, race, and gender.

So essentially, human rights conventions, declarations, and acts all attempt to guarantee humans decent treatment and protection against discrimination. There are three attributes that all human rights have, which we discuss in our open step on the three human rights principles.. 

Human rights are:

1.    Interdependent and indivisible. This means that all of our human rights have equal standing, and no single right is more important than another. Guaranteeing one human right is not the same as guaranteeing all, and the violation of one human right often violates others too.

2.    Inalienable. This means that human rights are completely unconditional. They don’t have to be bought, inherited or earned, and they cannot be taken away for any reason, by any person or institution.

3.    Universal. This means that all human beings in the world have human rights. Whether this is upheld is debatable, but all states have a duty to protect the human rights of all their citizens.

What are all of the human rights?

For a full description of all your human rights, you can take a look at the official UN document (https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/udhr.pdf), but I’ll be listing fifteen of them below in simplified statements. This way, you’ll have a better understanding of your rights before we explore them in more detail.

1.    All humans are born equal.

2.    Nobody should be treated like a slave.

3.    Nobody has the right to torture you.

4.    The law is the same for everyone.

5.    You can ask for legal help when the rights your country grants you are not respected.

6.    Nobody has the right to imprison you without legal reason.

7.    You are innocent until proven guilty, have the right to defend yourself, and cannot be punished for someone else’s crime.

8.    You have the right to come and go as you wish within your country. 

9.    If someone hurts you, you can go to another country and ask for protection,  unless you’ve killed someone. 

10. You have the right to belong to a country.

11. You have the right to profess your religion freely.

12. You can think what you want and say what you like.

13. Everyone has the right to work, choose the type of work they do, and get paid fairly.

14. Everyone has the right to go to school and primary school should be free.

15. Everyone is entitled to take part in political affairs and everyone gets a vote.