The vision of Omara-Otunnu (pictured below), an associate professor of history at UConn, is for international cooperation to further the cause of human rights.

That vision became a reality with the historic agreement between the University of Connecticut and the African National Congress (ANC), signed in March 1999 in South Africa’s Parliament Building in Cape Town. It launched a partnership that not only promotes international understanding, but also epitomizes the University’s strategic goal of becoming a national leader in the study of international human rights.

The partnership, for which UConn competed with a number of other outstanding universities, consists of three parts.

First, the agreement designates the University of Connecticut as the sole North American repository for ANC archival materials, including thousands of diaries, letters and other records of the fight to end apartheid drawn from more than 30 countries around the world. The University will provide technical assistance in the processing, arrangement and preservation of archival materials and will train black South Africans in the skills of archival management.

Secondly, scholars at the University’s Center for Oral History will train and assist South Africans to conduct a series of oral interviews with more than 200 leaders of the ANC, many of whom are elderly and whose stories are vital to preserving the history of the struggle for racial justice in South Africa.

The third component will be a comparative human rights project involving interdisciplinary academic programs with scholarly study of the historical materials and an ongoing exchange of both students and advanced scholars sharing information on the history of conflicts in the 20th century and for developing strategies for securing human rights for people from various parts of the world.