Social Justice

Students and faculty in the UW's Center for Human Rights, working with a partner organization in El Salvador, are helping Salvadorans seek justice for crimes committed during El Salvador's brutal civil war.

Five UW graduate students recently developed The Pivot Project, aimed at combating human trafficking. Their weapon of choice? Design. The project won the 2013 Design Ignites Change Idea Award and is a finalist in the Industrial Designers Society of America’s Ideas competition.

Graham Pruss knows a thing or two about being homeless, having lived through some tough times on the streets as a teen. So when he noticed a growing number of people living in their vehicles in his Seattle neighborhood, he was determined to help.

The growing trend of allowing police to "banish" citizens from certain neighborhoods is explored in Banished: The New Social Control in Urban America, by UW Professors Katherine Beckett and Steve Herbert.

The new Center for Human Rights, based in the College of Arts and Sciences with Angelina Godoy as director, hopes to encourage broad collaboration on human rights issues. “It’s gratifying to see how readily colleagues across the campus have embraced the Center’s interdisciplinary vision,” says Godoy. 

When the economy floundered, Chinese migrant workers were among the largest casualties globally, in part because of a Maoist-era institution known as hukou that continues to function in China today, creating two levels of citizenship.

Matthew Alexander (‘01) is founder of Ahmsa, an NGO in Bogotá, Colombia that provides skills training, microcredit, and other support to alleviate poverty in Bogotá.

Craig Nakagawa (’89) is co-founder of VillageReach, an NGO aimed at improving health care distribution systems in the most distant reaches of developing countries, beginning with Mozambique.

Students in the Jackson School's Responsible Apparel Purchasing task force explored labor issues related to the production of apparel that bears a University of Washington logo. Related stories: The President as Evaluator

UW Professor Jonathan Mayer is "just short of obsessed" with improving health in Nima, a desperately poor neighborhood in Accra, the largest city in Ghana, Africa. 

Anthropology professor Lorna Rhodes explores the challenges faced by prisoners and prison staff in a maximum security prison.