The Raoul Wallenberg Institute cooperates with two universities in Cambodia, both with libraries with human rights material. RWI librarian Karl Adam Tiderman went to Cambodia last week to meet with representatives from these libraries to follow up on what has been accomplished this far, and to plan how to improve the cooperation further.
The Royal University of Law and Economics (RULE) has a center for the Study of Humanitarian Law (CSHL), and the Pannasastra University of Cambodia (PUC) hosts a human rights section in their university library. RWI is providing support with education, material, and infrastructure with the overall goal to promote human rights in Cambodia.
“The cooperation has developed nicely, and the two Cambodian libraries have both been equipped with a catalogue to make the material searchable online, as well as a new web resource for human rights links. For the center at RULE, a new webpage has also been created,” says Tiderman.
Cambodia faces major human rights challenges, but Tiderman says progress is being made. And he says the libraries are popular.
“By providing the two libraries with a human rights resource, as well as a catalog for the CSHL, the impact of the literature and the libraries’ impact will increase. Hopefully this will help raise public awareness that human rights material is there to find,” says Tiderman.