Action Projects
Classical Magnet High School:
Students are planning and organizing an ACTION Week for April of 2008 to include activities such as Mix It Up Day, The Day of Silence, and the viewing of a documentary the students plan to make about prejudice in their school.
Hall High School:
Formed a new club called ACTION (Awareness Creates Togetherness In Our Neighborhoods) to serve as the hub of the students’ work at Hall High School.
Students are organizing a campaign to replace the Native American imagery associated with their mascot. A contest will be held to determine the new image to accompany their mascot name, “The Warriors.”
Organizing a Day of Silence in the spring. The Day of Silence is a student-led day of action where those who support making anti-LGBT bullying and harassment unacceptable in schools participate in events to recognize and protest the discrimination and harassment, in effect, the silencing experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students and their allies.
East Windsor High School: develop and held a school wide Diversity Day. The students organized four assemblies, and hour or so each, for four different sections of the alphabet. By the end of the day, the entire school had attended one of these workshops. The agenda included icebreakers, a group exclusion exercise, a student panel about how stereotypes & prejudice had affected them in school, and an activity called “Flash Judgments.” Twenty students organized and ran the assemblies and many continued their involvement by joining the newly formed SAID Club (Students Against Isms and Discrimination.)
Windsor High School:
Organized a motivational and anti-bullying speaker, Calvin Terrell to present to the entire student body.
Students ran a necessities and toiletries drive for a local domestic violence shelter. They also organized a "Day for Darfur," including video presentations, guest speakers, awareness raising and a fundraising event.
Westfield Vocational Technical High School: These students planned to organize a cultural diversity night with songs and dance as well as food from different students’ cultures. Also, the students planned to paint a mural in the school hallway featuring the Hands Project from Bridges – an activity that showcases students’ social identities and personalities.
Springfield Expeditionary Learning School (6th grade.) The students planned to write and distribute a newsletter throughout the school about their experiences in BRIDGES. The newsletter would include a poem about prejudice that the group wrote as well as individual reflections, poetry written independently, and articles about issues like racism & sexism in their school. As their second action piece, a group of students planned to hold a forum and safe language campaign. The safe language piece would include posters throughout the school as well as articles in the newsletter about safe language. The forum would build on this and feature student speakers on topics such as the use of the N-word, the B-word, and phrases like “That’s so gay,” and “that’s so retarded.”
Roger Williams College:
Organized a week of action for Darfur with a large-scale publicity event on the main quad on campus (40,000 bright red little flags were planted in the grass of the quad and several days later, signs went up around campus talking about how each flag represents 10 people who have been killed in the genocide (totaling 400,000 people.) This publicity event was then followed up by teach-ins and letter writing campaigns.
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