Project Description

Tau Beta Alpha is a multi-cultural diversity fraternity located in Hastings, Nebraska at Hastings College. We started this fraternity about a year ago with a vision to make a change in our community. The goal is to teach people about all the different diverse groups which sometimes get overlooked in this city. Since our group mostly consists of students from the big city, it was slightly uncomfortable for us to come to rural Nebraska and adjust to the ways. We feel it's important to spread our word and hopefully make Hastings College and the community open to new ideas. Our fraternity is focused on making this community a more diverse and friendly environment for newcomers. From preparing and coordinating our own Diversity Assembly for local elementary schools, to being one of the most active groups on campus, Tau Beta Alpha has made a huge impact on the Hastings community in our short existence. We pride ourselves in covering all spectrums of diversity and allowing everyone to get involved. We have held many dances including a hip-hop Black and White Dance, to a country Outlaw Dance. We feel the more diverse this campus and community gets, the more we can grow as a city and break away from the secluded ways that have seemed to scare students like us away. Tau Beta Alpha has also found a passion for helping the youth of our community. We believe that the kids are where the future starts, and the more we educate them about diversity and change, the bigger impact we can make. Along with our school assemblies, we have participated in helping out with the local Youth Olympics, have gone to recess at the elementary schools and taught teamwork, and also volunteered at a bike safety clinic for kids. Another aspect we pride ourselves in is unselfishness. So far, every fundraising event we have done, we’ve taken 10 percent of the proceeds and donated it to the local Red Cross. Giving back to the community that has given us the opportunity to succeed is very important to us. As we grow, we want Hastings to grow with us. Our fraternity will continue to remain the most active group on campus, and hopefully one day, the most active group in the community. We have received much help and support from professors, our school president, other students, and even the mayor. As we continue to work with them and create an even bigger team environment, our goal of diversity becomes more real every day. It’s a long way down the road until Hastings accepts the changes we are willing to work for, but we will continue to take it one step at a time and strive towards our goal of community diversity.

We have a website if you would like to check it out and get further information on Tau Beta Alpha's progress:
http://taubetalpha.com/

Project Description

This week is for promoting diversity and tolerance of everyone on campus at my high school. Each day will have a specific topic of discussion. The topics include Religion, Gender Orientation/ Sexual Preference, Race, and Disability. With each topic, comes activities and educational events. Along with each topic will also be a video, in each homeroom class, explaining what is going on throughout the week, and also a description of examples/ statistics of issues surrounding the topic of the day. The end of the week will be wrapped up with an assembly through "Rachel's Challenge" followed by a day of silence for all those who are forced into silence because of discrimination against them . Currently, I am selling shirts to faculty and other students that say "Accept Me." on the front; Those who have the shirts will be asked to wear them at least once during the week in order to promote a message of acceptance of all people on the Edison campus. The shirts are simple black tee shirts with white lettering, in order to be simple enough to catch people’s eye. Another point of such a bold statement is to stimulate people to ask questions, and inquire those who are wearing the shirt what it means.
This project is really important to me because I feel that it is time for change at Edison High School. It’s time to make an impact on the student body and open their eyes to those around them. There are too many people who aren’t accepting of others because of stereotypes; I plan to not only change the way people view others, but also break the stereotype molds.

Project Description

This week is for promoting diversity and tolerance of everyone on campus at my high school. Each day will have a specific topic of discussion. The topics include Religion, Gender Orientation/ Sexual Preference, Race, and Disability. With each topic, comes activities and educational events. Along with each topic will also be a video, in each homeroom class, explaining what is going on throughout the week, and also a description of examples/ statistics of issues surrounding the topic of the day. The end of the week will be wrapped up with an assembly through "Rachel's Challenge" followed by a day of silence for all those who are forced into silence because of discrimination against them . Currently, I am selling shirts to faculty and other students that say "Accept Me." on the front; Those who have the shirts will be asked to wear them at least once during the week in order to promote a message of acceptance of all people on the Edison campus. The shirts are simple black tee shirts with white lettering, in order to be simple enough to catch people’s eye. Another point of such a bold statement is to stimulate people to ask questions, and inquire those who are wearing the shirt what it means.
This project is really important to me because I feel that it is time for change at Edison High School. It’s time to make an impact on the student body and open their eyes to those around them. There are too many people who aren’t accepting of others because of stereotypes; I plan to not only change the way people view others, but also break the stereotype molds.

Project Description

Anytown Arizona Anytown Arizona programs guide participants through facilitated dialogue and interactive workshops designed to provoke thought and inspire change. Through this experience, participants not only address their interactions with others, but also investigate their own identity and discuss issues that can be difficult to approach in everyday life. By raising the level of consciousness about the sense of otherness and distrust, Anytown Arizona programs help prevent the negative spiral of alienation, prejudice and hatred. Through our various youth development and leadership programs, we have served over 30,000 Arizona youth since 1957. Through our annual events, we have raised the awareness of over 10,000 adults, and through our diversity training and similar programs, we have served over 100 organizations in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Anytown Arizona strives to meet this need by providing a structure and venue in which participants can recognize, investigate, and tackle the social issues they face daily. Our programs offer a safe space and a series of workshops based in experiential learning with the objective of supporting leaders who create change in their schools, organizations, and communities.

Project Description

Most people are under the misconception that Germany is a Christian country. Unfortunately, they are mistaken. Even though 65% of the German population claims to be christian, the actual percentage is lower. A majority of the population only join a church because they get a tax reduction. The harsh reality is that it is extremely difficult for a teenager to live out a Christian life. Sprachcamp is a place for high school students that are Christians and even non-Christians to come and build new relationships. High school students come from all over Germany to grow at Sprachcamp. The students look forward to constructing new friendships with other kids their age who are going through the same challenges in life. Sprachcamp provides the campers with counselors who always create a welcoming enviroment. There are two separate groups of campers. After one week of camp the second group arrives. Each camp is a week long and invites a hundred kids to come and share the Sprachcamp experiences with us.
Another benefit to Sprachcamp is that these German kids are given the opportunity to improve their English. The staff at Sprachcamp is filled with both Germans and Americans. The teenagers love hanging out with the Americans and getting to know more about the culture. The campers get to experience cohabiting with the American staff. English classes provide an understanding of grammar and an exploration of the language to the students. Each student is placed in a language group with their level of efficiency in English. These groups play games in English and opens up different conversations which develops their vocabulary. At the same time, conversing with the Americans helps their accents and fluency. We teach them song lyrics and create music videos for each language group, which allows the German campers to think in english in a fun and unique way. The fascinating fact about Sprachcamp is that not every camper that attends knows English. We are communicating with these students by breaking the language barriers. They understand our love, friendship, and compassion and it reachs out to them.
At Sprachcamp there is such an intimate bond between the Germans and Americans. Camp is a truly remarkable concept, because it reaches out to these kids to such a great extent. Most of these teenagers have had a hard life, some of them have lost their parents in the last couple of years. This camp means so much to them, because they know that they will always have friends across the world and a place where they are accepted for who they are. Sprachcamp is really somewhere where these German students find comfort. A majority of them have a difficult time scraping up the money to go, the price for a week of camp is only one hundred euros. However, one hundred euros for one family can be a couple weeks worth of food, or money saved up for gasoline. For families to be willing to give up their money to send one child to camp for a week, that just demonstrates how much this camp is worth.
I have an intense passion for this camp. I am aware that I am merely a teenager, but I have huge ambitions. I am compelled to expand Sprachcamp and reach out to more teenagers. My first time at Sprachcamp I was suprisingly embraced. I am half African American and half Chinese. I was absolutely terrified about attending Sprachcamp, because of Neo-Nazis and being persecuted. Then I realized this is so much bigger than me. These kids taught me self humility and the importance of serving and loving others. My heritage helps me see the camp at a different perspective from the rest of the staff. I can see how accepting these students are by the way they embraced me. A couple campers told me that I was the only African American person that they had ever seen in person, and that they loved the fact that I was there. I have a burning love for this country and it's people and I want to do anything and everything that I can to give more teenagers the oppurtunities they deserve.

Project Description

The mission of Jer's Vision: Canada's Youth Diversity Initiative (the Jeremy Dias Foundation) is to support youth who are addressing issues of discrimination in their schools and communities. Discrimination is still a major problem in Canada, and youth are part of the solution. The potential of youth is all too often overlooked, and we want to change that.

Jer's Vision seeks to support youth through programs and services that are open to everyone. We work to address all kinds of discrimination, including discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, location, colour, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, income, and mental or physical disability.

Jer's Vision seeks to support and encourage youth to work to stop discrimination against in all communities across Canada.

VISION News celebrates diverse events in Ottawa (& Canada) that often go unheard of. One of a kind, this news show allows youth from accorss to country to contribute to the show and raise awareness about events and incidents that affect their lives.

Check out http://jersvision.org/english/ottawa/awareness_visionnews.php or youtube.com/jersvision

Project Description

The Latino Empowerment Team (LET) is a group of twelve Washington University in St. Louis undergraduate students who are interested in education reform, increasing diversity on college campuses nationwide, and have a strong desire to help Latino youth. This is our second year in operation; our primary program is an annual alternative spring break trip to an area in the United States with a large number of low-income minority students. The purpose of the trip is to visit high school classrooms to give an interactive presentation that highlights what many minority students see as obstacles to attaining higher education. We hope to dispel any misconceptions they may have and provide solutions to the obstacles they face in the form of skits, games, and an open-panel discussion. We think the most effective part of our presentation is that it’s more of an exchange than a lecture; also, the high school students are very receptive to students just a few years older than them. Most of the LET members are minorities themselves and heavily rely on financial aid and scholarships to attend college, so we are able to offer very personal advice to the students.

This year LET will travel to McAllen and Harlingen, Texas. Our group has written a script that includes realistic scenes outlining obstacles Latinos face when applying to college: parental, financial and social. Furthermore, our script has fun, interactive games like “Jeopardy” and “Family Feud” where students learn what tools they need to get into college, resources available to them, and possible scholarship or other financial support they can receive, while still having fun.

Our script will also focus on educating Latino students that might have parents residing illegally in the United States that they also can apply to college and receive funding. A lot of these students are under the impression that they can’t apply to college without exposing the illegal status of their parents and we hope to change this misconception.

The way we will measure success will be through the number of students we were able to speak to and the evaluations we receive back from the students (we will create evaluations that students can fill out telling us what they liked about our presentation and improvements we can make for the next year). Because our group is made up of only twelve students, it is impossible to keep track of all the students we present to and which ones end up applying to and attending college. However, we believe that if we can even encourage one Latino student to go to college that wasn’t planning on going before, we have made a difference. Who knows, that student could be the next Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes or Cesar Chavez.

We predict that our impact on the students we visit will last much longer than the hour we spend with them. In order to implement long-term contact with each other, LET has set up an e-mail account through g-mail so that students can ask us questions in the future. This e-mail will be provided to all of the students we present to over the course of the week. We will have a student constantly checking the e-mail account and answering questions students might have. We will offer our services in helping to find students scholarships, editing their college essays, and anything else they feel comfortable asking us. Many of the students that we presented to last year have contacted us, and we feel that we will receive more e-mails from them in the coming year as they begin the application process. LET will also re-send our contact information to the schools we visited in the past just in case the students misplaced it. Overall, LET will have a very positive influence on Latino youth in the area and will renew a sense of hope for the betterment of their future.

Project Description

This was a segment in the local paper showing citizens how we can fix our local community through community meetings and individual leadership. Along with the News and Record, Greensboro, NC's newspaper, the National Conference for Community and Justice has teamed up with a few high school students to spread awareness about problems that are affecting our community. I was included in these events as one of the students that spoke out. I attended a leadership camp this summer to help improve my leadership skills and community interaction. I also attend the workshops where we plan to unite our community through school wide programs that will unite our youths. We have Workshops and Conferences that encourage students and potiental leaders to take a stand in their communitys. There students are then taught to take a stand against violence, prejudice, racial profiling, and discrimination.
There is a video of me speaking out at http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=multimedia&pluid=1590&playNowId=1591.
My name is Moriah Girley. Click on the link and you will see my stance on the problems in my community and solutions to these problems.

Project Description

The mission of Jer's Vision: Canada's Youth Diversity Initiative (the Jeremy Dias Foundation) is to support youth who are addressing issues of discrimination in their schools and communities. Discrimination is still a major problem in Canada, and youth are part of the solution. The potential of youth is all too often overlooked, and we want to change that.

Jer's Vision seeks to support youth through programs and services that are open to everyone. We work to address all kinds of discrimination, including discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, location, colour, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, income, and mental or physical disability.

Jer's Vision seeks to support and encourage youth to work to stop discrimination against in all communities across Canada.

We are proud to have over 800 volunteers, over 36 programs and services and do education and engagment work with over 10,00 people annually.

Project Description

With my partner, I completed the Girl Scout Gold Award (the highest distinction awarded in Girl Scouts, equivalent to the Eagle Scout) Project. I educated younger Girl Scouts about different cultures that make up the United States of America. I set up booths for Thinking Day (a large event in the girl scout world) for various countries around the world so that the girls could learn about them and expand their knowledge of ethnicity.