Wednesday, 12. 12. 2018

Eleanor Roosevelt statue erected at the 70th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights

On 10 December, Human Rights Day, Ljubljana unveiled the statue of Eleanor Roosevelt, who presided over the committee which drew up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The statue of Eleanor Roosevelt, who advocated the position that human rights need to be respected, was erected at the avenue leading to the National Museum of Contemporary History in Tivoli Park.

Eleanor Roosevelt was the first lady of the United States of America until 1945. She was cleverly using her husband’s position to implement her ideas, especially her criticism of segregation and inequality of women. She tried to promote their role also by allowing only women journalists to report from her press conferences. During the time of her husband’s presidency she held 350 press conferences and for almost 30 years published the My Day column surpassing the trivialities of everyday life of an American wife. She was also active during the Second World War, and after her husband’s death she became the »First Lady of the World« because of her humanitarian efforts as the following president Truman named her.

We erected the statue of Eleanor Roosevelt together with Amnesty International Slovenia, namely, they joined the campaign Art for Amnesty bringing together artists from around the world and they proposed the initiative for the erection of the bust statue of this lady in Ljubljana.