Social Justice Ambassadors

Alexandra Orlandi – Staff Writer

The Social Justice Ambassadors Club partnered with the non-profit organization, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), focuses on local and global social issues. CRS provides us with themes of social issues that are current and relevant during each year. Last and this year, CRS and the Social Justice Ambassadors have been attentive to climate change, migration, and human trafficking. Although we use these themes as leads, we explore other local and global social problems that we deem important to spread awareness of and play our part in solving.

The group has led and taken part of a variety of events this Fall semester of 2018. We started with partaking in Founder’s Week in the very beginning of the semester. The ambassadors led a Migration Walk on campus that tells the story of an immigrant that travels from their land of poverty and violence to the United States. There were several stops in which a chronological part of the story was read. The walk finished in the library where an exhibit on immigration was showcased.

Following the theme of immigration, the ambassadors created a poster presented at two information booths. “I AM MIGRATION” was written on the poster but left empty space for people to sign in solidarity with immigrants. We also created trivia questions to ask the visitors as an interactive way to inform the campus about current immigration events and facts. We hope this awareness will inspire people to play a role in resolving the migration issue.

PAWS held the Take Back the Night event on October 18^th in which the Social Justice Ambassadors were invited to speak at. A couple of the ambassadors were able to attend and read three poems about stories of domestic and sexual violence. We are adamant to prevent these unfortunately prevalent social issues.

A few of the ambassadors, along with our advisor Vincent Sullivan-Jacques, attended and led the CRS Training meeting alongside students and club advisors from Boston College and Tufts University. While brainstorming ideas at the event for our club, we concluded to try to combine our club with another on our campus! The Social Justice Ambassadors are now collaborating with the Women’s Studies clubs to create information booths, hold lectures, and showcase films on human/sex-trafficking. Keep on the lookout!

Keep an eye out for our November programs. We will host a Late-Night Fair Trade BINGO event on November 9^th. It will be an opportunity to win great prizes and gift cards from companies that focus on Ethical and Fair Trade. Food will be served. During the following week, we will honor Hunger and Homelessness Awareness week by engaging the Assumption community in activities to call attention to neighbors in need. Thank you for taking the time to keep updated on our club’s activities.

Alexandra Orlandi, a senior, studies Psychology. She is a staff writer for Le Provocateur.