Tips for holding a Write For Rights event

Holding a Write For Rights event is a good way to get your local community interested in Amnesty and writing letters for individuals, while getting members of your group together to write appeals and solidarity messages for this year’s cases.

Getting started

Set the date

Choose a date and specific time – eg. 10am until noon on a Friday morning.

You can hold a Write For Rights event any time between 1 November and the end of the year. Many groups choose to hold events on 10 December, International Human Rights Day.

Choose a location

It could be a coffee morning-type event with an AmnesTea, a stall at your local market, or even an evening in a pub or café that is willing to host you.

Publicise your event

December can however get very busy very quickly, so even if your event is a few weeks out, make sure you get the event in invitees diaries plenty of time in advance.

• If it’s a public event, add it to the event listings on our website
• Send an email to your group members and invitees, and ask them to save the date
• Create a Facebook event, post it on your local group’s Facebook page and tweet about it if you have a Twitter account
• Print out or order some of our campaign posters and stick them on public noticeboards, staff room and workplace noticeboards and shop windows.

Invite the media

If you’re putting on a public event, make sure you contact local media in advance to let them know date, time, location and what they can expect. We've created a template press release to help you do this.

• Download the template press release and use it as a basis for your event press release
• Get in touch with our press office for more support: email press@amnesty.org.uk

Preparing for your event

Campaign materials

• Download the Write For Rights campaign booklet, posters and other campaign materials - or order printed copies and we'll send them to you for free: phone 01788 545553 to order
• Pick a few cases to focus on
• Display case sheets and information on your chosen cases and the campaign for people to read. Find all the case sheets here.
• Print out labels with addresses/messages for your case (you can find these here)
• Make sure you have leaflets about Amnesty and your group for people who want to get more involved, as well as a sign up sheet for them to leave their contact details
• Order free Write For Rights materials

Stationery

• Make sure you have a good supply of pens, greetings cards and envelopes
• Provide cards for people to write in
• Provide slips of paper with pre-printed messages
• Get some coloured paper for people to design their own cards
• Address and stamp envelopes in advance

Postage

• Have a tin for donations towards postage
• Suggest the price of a stamp as ‘entry’ fee

Afterwards

• Post photos and details on your local group website, your Facebook pages and Twitter feeds
• Let us know about it – send photos and a short write-up to iar@amnesty.org.uk
• Follow up with attendees – email everyone to let them know how many letters were written, sum up the day, and let people new to Amnesty know when your group is meeting next
• Send a couple of photos and summary to your local press – even if no one from the media attended the event, make it easy for them to cover it!