Student Activism
What we learned:
- In the mid 80s, student activism increased quickly probably due to popular band's interests (e.g. Sting)
- Student groups function differently from local groups, and they out number them by 3:1
- There are many advantages of University/ Colleges AI chapters
- High population in a small area
- High youth energy! - IT'S THERE! USE IT!
- Resources are plentiful, can easily access $$, event planning & news releases
- Every group suffers from similar problems: general apathy of students, finding funding for events, and developing creative methods to generate more interest in the group.
- Various action opportunities:
- National Week of Student Action (the week of Feb. 20, 2000) focused on child soldiers, a phenomenon occurring in Central and Southern America, Indonesia, Eastern Europe, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and many other regions. The children join armies to avoid starvation and torture. In Uganda, children are kidnapped and forced into armies. Armies in Sierra Leone make the children addicted to drugs, coercing them into service. Peer pressure in Ireland moves many children into the armed services.
- Patrick Stewart Scholarship: ten scholarships of up to $1500 are awarded to students to carry out a human rights project.
- Scholarships do exist to help students attend the Annual General Meeting of Amnesty International USA.
- Special Focus Case would entail our group to "adopting a prisoner of conscience," allowing us to focus our energy, letter writing, and awareness-raising on a specific issue throughout the school year.
- Resources for student groups:
- The Activist Toolkit contains information on special interest human rights groups/networks (e.g. the Just Earth Network, Outfront, Women's Network).
- Student Area Coordinator from the regional office can train our group and hold workshops to help us develop our goals.
- Make a conscious effort to develop continuity in the club by finding younger, interested members and focusing on them to foster leadership skills.
- Form relationships with local AI groups, who can help advise us and perhaps participate in our events.
- Great suggestion for publicity: send press releases to newspapers (or write a letter to the editor) and ask radio stations to make a public service announcement.
Ways to bring it back to USC:
- Plan and hold events for the National Week of Student Action in February. Some ideas are:
- Obtain a speaker on the issue of child soldiers. Our regional AI office has a list of contacts and speakers we could use. We can work on funding the speaker, reserving the room (perhaps the Leavey Library Auditorium), and publicizing the event early.
- Show a powerful film, Drumming for Child Soldiers .
- Put together an art/photo exhibit that could be displayed along Trousdale and near Tommy Trojan.
- We could work with academic departments, such as International Relations and the Office of International Studies, allowing us to accomplish one of our group's goals.
- Join the Western Region's Special Focus Case, giving our group a specific goal and issue to work on.
- For each action we would like to do: identify intermediate and overall goals, available resources, possible tactics (e.g. speakers, letter-writing, media attention), delegate tasks, and evaluate the effectiveness of the action.
- Utilize ideas for fundraising:
- Attend TV tapings.
- Hold bake sales. Fortune cookies were extremely popular at one school.
- Look for possible donations.
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