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Activism
Ever since I was a small child, I have been
passionate about the issues that are facing
the world. When I was 10, I wrote a petition
for a two-year moratorium against the use of
the death penalty here in Pennsylvania. The
petition was adopted by Germantown Monthly
Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
(Quakers). Many people in the Meeting community
and in my neighborhood circulated the petition
and gathered signatures. The petition went
to the Pennsylvania Governor's office.
Three years later, I noticed that a heavily-used
mailbox had been removed from a busy corner
in my neighborhood. Again, I wrote a petition
to get the mailbox restored, and with the
help of family and friends, I gathered over
250 signatures. A small rally was held at my
local post office when I delivered the petition
to an assistant to the manager. After a subsequent
meeting and many follow-up phone calls, the
mailbox was reinstalled. Several months later,
an article about this campaign was published
in the Philadelphia Inquirer's Sunday Magazine.
Even today, as I walk around my neighborhood,
people come up to me and thank me for “getting
the mailbox back.”
As I grew older and my schoolwork-load intensified,
I found less time for activism. When I was
in middle school, I wrote articles about political
events and posted them on this website. I also
got involved in the Middle School Friends program
of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. When I entered
high school, I moved to the Young Friends program.
In 2006, I took a leadership position in Young
Friends when I became a Permanent Nurturer.
I servde in that capacity until August of 2009.
At the 2007 Friends General Conference Gathering
in River Falls, WI, I was one of the Clerks
(leaders) of the High School Program.
In the summer of 2008,
the second Young Peoples Empowerment Convergence
(YPEC) was held in West Philadelphia. I attended
the first YPEC in 2007 and helped to plan
the second.
The goal of these gatherings is to demonstrate
the significance of youth in our society and
to expose young people’s untapped potential
to effect positive change. After the first
YPEC,
I wrote an article about the workshops and
activities that were held. My article was
published in
the October 2007 issue of Friends Journal,
a national Quaker magazine that has a readership
of 25,000. I also administered YPEC's website
for two years.
Attending the Woolman Semester during the
second half of my senior year of high school
heightened my social awareness. Now that I
am at Haverford College, I am taking on new
leadership roles. In January 2011, I accepted
the position of Co-clerk of the Quaker Community
at Haverford (QuaC). Along with the two other
Co-clerks, I lead QuaC's Meetings for Business
and organize social events.
In the 2010-2011 school year, I took two courses
which helped me understand my Quaker faith
on a deeper level. In the fall, I took Quaker
Social Witness with Kaye Edwards, and in the
spring, I took Emma Lapsansky's History and
Principles of Quakerism. Also in the spring,
I took a research seminar on the Strategies
of Nonviolent Struggle with George Lakey.
I
will use the knowledge I learned at Woolman
and Haverford in my further quests to make
the world a better place for all.
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