SL BLOG #3

SL Blog #3 Week of Nov.19^th, 2011

Activism:

This week my community partner VOX joined with NOW and helped them raise money for their organization. We encouraged as many people to attend. It was held at a café and many other organizations attended as well. They had entertainment and were giving out raffles. They were able to make raise money as well as give some education of about each of their organizations (it wasn’t just fun but informative as well). My only issue was that there might have been more that attended had the local been bigger and in an area that was easy to get to. Well, in my case because I don’t live nearby it was difficult to find. The next time we have an event such as this one I think it should be done somewhere on campus (if possible). But, I think that overall we had much success.

Reflection:

Although, the benefit cause was for NOW and not my community partner we still had a part. Both organizations joined together to announce this gathering and give out information to the students that came. Because, we were working with NOW I learned a few things from their group that I didn’t know. I also found out that both VOX and NOW work together because they both work towards women’s issues. Working with them I was reminded of our Violence Against Women chapter from the Women’s Lives Multicultural Perspectives book. A section from this chapter explained the importance of activism and how it can make a change.  It stated as follows by Judith Herman M.D. “changing public consciousness about a traumatic issue like violence against women takes a concerted political movement” (p.267). The main reason I chose this passage was because of the meaning it had. If we stand up as a group and try to change any form of oppression then maybe we can eventually change how society thinks. We can only do it one person at a time. It is much like what we did when we were raising money for the NOW organization, we all worked together for one same cause.

Reciprocity:

Attending this event I met new people that I might not have spoken to before. I have become educated and learned that we need to look beyond appearances and instead see what is inside. To hear what all these different people I met had to say was amazing. Everyone had diverse views of the many issues we are facing today. In a feminist perspective I think that they may see what is happening as we are all focused on the serious issues rather than other things like what we look like or who we are. Instead we come together and try to figure out what is the best thing to do to solve the problems by having discussions. The different opinions are encouraged instead of looked down at. And, I think this is important because this is how we can include everyone when trying to fix a situation. In my opinion this is how society should work rather than trying to get rid of the new ideas and stick with the old. 

Works Cited

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women’s Lives Multicultural Perspectives 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010.