Two marathons
Writing marathon for the 25th anniversary of het local Amnesty group of Enschede, 1986
Courtesy of Archive Amnesty International Netherlands, IISH, Amsterdam
On 19 and 20 August in 1986, a special event marked the 25th anniversary of Amnesty International in Enschede. During an introduction week for college students, a letter writing marathon was organized by the Enschede Amnesty team. For 25 hours, students, professors and other people wrote letters to embassies and presidents from countries that kept prisoners of conscience. A total of 150 participants wrote letters during the marathon.
Posters of the writing marathon on the headquarters building in Amsterdam, 2013
Courtesy of Letters for Amnesty
Letter writing may have become less popular in the decades after the marathon of Enschede, but it still had a big appeal in 2013. Then, the letter writing marathon became a re-invented action method for Amnesty Netherlands. On 10 December, on the International Day of Human Rights, a national letter writing marathon was held by Amnesty in the Netherlands. This was part of the global Write For Rights-week.
The headquarters of Amnesty in Amsterdam was full of enthusiastic writers for 24 hours. They wrote for nine prisoners of conscience from various parts of the world. Besides sending letters to authorities, the volunteers decorated postcards to encourage the prisoners. There was a sense of solidarity among the letter-writers and for the prisoners the letters were written for. This resulted in a total of 5971 letters.
Writing at the marathon, 2013
Courtesy of Letters for Amnesty
A crowded Amnesty International Netherlands marathon in Amsterdam, 2013
Courtesy of Letters for Amnesty
Hugo Schalkwijk promoting Letters for Amnesty, 2013
Courtesy of Letters for Amnesty
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