At last year's National Annual General Meeting (NAGM) we promised to keep you updated on the progress of the implementation of the resolutions passed. See the full list of NAGM 2008 resolutions.

We have amended Amnesty International Australia's constitution so that BAGMs and NAGMs will be provided with the current financial year budget and the latest quarterly reforecast. This means that the membership has the most recent financial position available to consider at these meetings.

  • Update November 2009: This year, the BAGMs in May and the NAGM in June were provided with this up-to-date financial information.

We are keeping people informed of our strategies and programs specifically aimed to engage young people in our work through our website, and via our Youth Coordinator. Our campaign materials 'I heart human rights' were the result of the inspiration and hard work of our Youth Advisory Group, and have formed part of both our UDHR60 celebrations as well as our campaigning for a Human Rights Act for Australia throughout 2008 and 2009. These were successful at the summer festivals around the country in early 2009 and we'll be rolling out a new range of materials ahead of the summer festivals for 2010. Another highlight of the UDHR60 events around the country was the ARTillery Youth Arts Festival in WA - a creative celebration of human rights and the Arts - run for young people by young people. Our school Action Packs - which include campaigning materials - were produced each term in collaboration with youth activists.

  • Update November 2009: Our Youth Advisory Group 2009 has well and truly made its mark in its fantastic submission to the Strengthening Democracy Project and by joining and contributing to NEGM. Amnesty International Australia was also fortunate to include a Youth Delegate in its delegations to this year's International Council Meeting (ICM). Our School Speakers Pilot Program - which aims to inspire young people about the work of Amnesty International Australia - has been made a key priority for the organisation for 2010. We are also able to communicate aspects of the Youth Strategy through our Human Rights Education Program. This program includes our Human Rights Today publication.

Keeping our supporters updated on our campaigns through our website, newsletters, information evenings and our magazine, the Human Rights Defender, remains a top priority and is central to achieving human rights impact.

  • Update 3 August 2009: In May we issued our Amnesty International Australia Annual Report which highlighted the amazing work by supporters in our campaigning both in Australia and internationally. Letting people know how our campaigns are going continues through emails, the website and through the Human Rights Defender. This year's NAGM in June also updated people on our campaigning work.

  • Update November 2009: To allow supporters instant access to new information regarding our work, using the newest technology, we have now linked our Urgent Actions page directly to the International Secretariat page to provide a stream of rolling UAs online via live RSS feed (real time updates). We also shared progress on our campaigns more generally through the National President/National Director email updates after each board meeting. At the recent NEGM, a number of plenary sessions and workshops provided an opportunity for members to hear the latest campaign information as well as acquire new activism and campaigning skills over the course of the weekend.

We are seeking to ensure that our supporters can contribute to decision-making in a number of ways. For example, in 2008, approximately 2000 of you participated in our Vision Consultation, which provided guidance on the identification and prioritisation of our campaigns for 2009. One of the most encouraging findings was that there was a great deal of alignment of views between the many and varied groups of respondents. We are very excited to see such support for the Vision and priorities of the movement. Early in 2009, we engaged with our stakeholders around the first part of the Strengthening Democracy Project via face-to-face group sessions and through an online survey.

  • Update 3 August 2009: The second part of our year long Strengthening Democracy Project will be a feature of the rest of this year. This is an important project where we ask our supporters what they want to see in terms of the way Amnesty International Australia is set up and operates.

  • Update November 2009: At our NEGM recently, we saw the result of the Strengthening Democracy Project with a number of resolutions (including some that change our constitution) being voted on and a series of workshops around issues around which supporters indicated they wished to engage further. Our End of [financial] Year receipt of August 2009 also asked for supporters' input regarding our work as a whole. We are looking forward to the responses!

More and more we are working with others to achieve our vision of a world where everyone's human rights are a reality. For example, Amnesty International Australia is one of a number of organisations campaigning for a Human Rights Act in Australia; we have joined the Close the Gap and the Make Poverty History campaigns as well as partnering with a number of local Indigenous organisations in the Northern Territory. We have established a Human Rights Innovation Fund to give anyone interested in promoting and defending human rights direct access to funds to support this work. For example, the ARTillery Youth Arts Festival in WA received funding for its festival which aimed to educate, inspire and inform young people in the 13-25 age group about human rights.

  • Update 3 August 2009: Working with others to achieve human rights impact remains central to the success of achieving our vision. We are working on a number of initiatives such as with the Australian Tibet Council on an event on Human Rights Day in December. It will feature an address by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. We have also collaborated with the ActNow Theatre for Social Change in South Australia. This is a terrific conference for young people to explore how theatrical tools can combine with campaigning to create innovative and creative mechanisms for social activism. In Victoria, we are working with the Humanitarian Crisis Hub project. Combined with Amnesty International Australia's crisis response work, it will increase our activist reach by engaging and empowering local communities around international emergencies.

  • Update November 2009: Through our Human Rights Innovation Fund, we have been able to sponsor and collaborate around a number of exciting projects. One of those was our 'Friends of Comfort Women in Australia' project, that culminated in 18,000 butterflies that 'flew' to PM Kevin Rudd in an emotional appeal to persuade Japan to offer justice to wronged 'comfort women'. We were also able to sponsor Gil Won Ok who is a survivor of the sexual slavery system set up by the Japanese military in her quest to come to Australia and sway government officials to urge Japan to correct 60 years of injustice. Using human rights awareness as a tool to empower an entire community, the educational 'Stand Up and Be Counted' project was another initiative we are especially proud to support. Our partners here are the innovative Banksia Gardens Community Centre working in conjunction with 11 other Neighbourhood Houses in the City of Hume, Vic. We will keep you updated on the impact of this exciting project!

Our media work is central to our ability to communicate our campaigns and human rights positions. The celebrations around the 60th anniversary of the UDHR provided us with a great opportunity to promote a broad human rights message, with events occurring around the country and a poster campaign being conducted in 60 Body Shop stores nationally, amongst other actions and events. We placed a 'public notice' in The Age on Human Rights Day and Claire Mallinson was featured in The Australian. This involves a dedicated section on their website which highlights a different 'take action' each month as well as human rights-focused news stories. We partnered with Oxfam, World Vision, CARE Australia, PLAN Australia and Greenpeace to place an opinion piece in The Age and our presentation to Tanya Plibersek of our 30,000 signatures as part of our Stop Violence Against Women campaign.

  • Update 3 August 2009: The launch of the Amnesty International Annual Report: 2009, State of the World's Human Rights in May focused on civil and political rights as well as economic, social and cultural rights. The press conference held in Sydney to launch the report reached an estimated audience of approximately 3 million people, ensuring that the message that governments - especially those in the G20 - needed to address the global human rights deficit reached a large number of people. We also used the launch to call on the Australian Government to urgently and meaningfully consult with Indigenous peoples to address human rights issues, to establish a Human Rights Act for Australia, to close Christmas Island and to properly fund programmes aimed at stopping violence against women and children.

  • Update November 2009: Between January and November 2009 Amnesty International Australia was reported in the media on an unprecedented scale: we secured an average of 300 press articles each month in a wide and varied range of media. In November 2009, Irene Khan's High Level Mission in November alone achieved media coverage reaching almost 3 million people. As a direct response to Aung San Suu Kyi's sham of a conviction, Amnesty International Australia was able to successfully place several interactive advertisements with leading newspapers websites. We also placed ads with newspapers emphasising yet again that Australia should treat refugees and asylum seekers humanely and in line with our international obligations.

Our Human Rights Act for Australia campaign generated more than 10,500 submissions to the Government's Consultation and we were able to provide real time updates via Twitter and Facebook to our supporters on how the public hearings in Canberra were going in early July. We were also able put questions to the panel from people who weren't able to attend to the hearings themselves.