PORTLAND SCHOOLS GATHER AT SMA FOR ACTIVISM WORKSHOP
Written by Kat Enders, Senior, St. Mary’s Academy
On Saturday April 5th, students from a variety of local Portland schools gathered for a workshop regarding activism and the Genocide in Darfur. A wide spectrum of schools was represented including St. Mary’s Academy, Clackamas High School, Grant High School, Barlow High School, Lincoln High School, Lakeridge High School, Canby High School, West Albany High School, Harriet Tubman Middle School and Portland Community College.
The workshop began with an instructional session on how to plan successful awareness events. Emily Gotfried spoke from personal experience as she addressed the students and gave advice about event planning. One of her strongest points was the importance of informing your audience. She claimed that if the target audience for an event were uninformed they would be much less inclined to support your cause or attend your event. She also talked about how to successfully advertise an event.
The next session was led by Katie-Jay Scott and Gabriel Stauring who spoke of their own lives as local activists and how they have gotten to this point in their activism careers. Both are involved with an organization called Stop Genocide Now that according to its website, www.stopgenocidenow.org, is “A grassroots community dedicated to working to protect populations in grave danger of violence, death and displacement resulting from genocide”. Scott and Stauring were able to show some footage of their recent trip to Chad to visit refugee camps. They also talked about how their life experience has helped them in activism and each stated the importance of using the resources available to you from other aspects of your life. For example, a yoga instructor could host a yoga-thon to raise awareness and funds for the genocide in Darfur.
Finally, John Prendergast spoke. He is the renowned co-author of the book Not on Our Watch that offers ways in which everyday people can help fight genocide. At the workshop he spoke of his experience in activism and talked not only about his time serving for the White House, but also his time working with celebrities in order to raise awareness. Just like Scott and Stauring, he emphasized the importance of using the life experience you gain prior to activism to give you an advantage as an activist. After hearing him speak students were offered information about opportunities to act within our own Portland community. The speakers and workshop inspired an exchange of information to allow the student participants to bridge the communication gap between schools to accomplish more than ever before.
