One week ago, close to 1000 educators, administrators, parents, and students were in Winnipeg for a two-day Manitoba Teachers' Society human rights conference. Among them were two teachers and four students from the Pine Creek School Division.

16 year old Storm Otto, from Gladstone's William Morton Collegiate, expects she'll become more active in human rights issues because of the conference.

Storm Otto (photo by Rae Hathaway)

"I definitely like learning about it, but having to make a change, too," she says, "It puts you in the right (state of) mind, and you feel proud of yourself, and you want to do this. And it helps society grow, and learn, and not repeat the same mistakes that were made hundreds of years ago."

Andrew Lewis (photo by Rae Hathaway)William Morton teacher Andrew Lewis feels it's important for students to be informed.

"We may live in a fairly wealthy country that, generally speaking, most people have a fairly good standard of living," he says, "That doesn't necessarily blanket everybody in the world, and we need to show them there is still a lot of change that has to happen in our world."

Grade 11 MacGregor Collegiate student Jordyn Ham was impressed by John Ralston Saul's presentation on being vigilant about human rights.

Jordyn Ham (photo by Rae Hathaway)

"He talked about how even though we have them," she says, "We still have to be ready to wake up every morning, and fight for them. And that the only way that we've ever gotten them is because people, every morning, have woken up, deciding they were going to fight for them, and make the sacrifices for them. And he talked about how people before us, especially in Canada, made the sacrifices to allow us to have the rights we have, so it's our turn to pay it forward."

Lewis teaches at MCI as well, and believes there's also interest in human rights among students who weren't at the conference.

"Other teachers are talking about it, but there's a lack of knowledge about where to put that interest," he says, "And so I think that, for those of us that have been to these kind of conferences, it falls to us to help direct that interest."

Joe Tomchuk (photo by Rae Hathaway)15 year old Joe Tomchuk from MacGregor Collegiate knows how he'll spread the word about human rights.

"When I go to post-secondary, I plan on becoming a teacher," he says, "And that's going to involve teaching the next generation, because the journey for human rights is not going to be easy, and it's not going to be short. It's still going on today, after hundreds of years -- thousands, maybe."

MacGregor Collegiate teacher Tanya Polasek points out her students were prepared for last week by attending similar conferences.

Tanya Polasek (photo by Rae Hathaway)

"It's not every day that 15, 16 year old students get the opportunity to hear speakers talk about these issues, with such experience, and such knowledge," she says, "So to come to a conference like that prepared, was really important."

A second student from William Morton was at the conference, but declined to be interviewed.

Here's the conference's schedule.

The Teenage Bears, a group of aboriginals that teach others of their culture, with people from the crowd who got to play their drum together, while the rest of us sang. (photo and caption by Storm Otto)