Amnesty Activities

Well, as usual, it has been a while since I wrote. Cliches are sometimes silly, but are usually cliche for a reason- ie, time flies when you're having fun.

In recent Amnesty news, (recent being the last few months), we had a huge community project entitled "Shelter for Freedom". It was a series of events spread over several days targeted at making the campus and community more aware of the global problem of human trafficking while realizing that the problem exists here in the local community, in the Walla Walla Valley even. This was not simply an Amnesty event, but was a collaboration between Amnesty, the student association, several local non-profit organizations, and several key individuals who dedicated their time and energy to making this project a success.

This project had been in the works for over a year, well before I ever became president. Upon my return, I found it placed in my lap in the form of weekly meetings to discuss the structure and details of these events- how they would be organized, how much profit we could expect, how much expense, who we needed to contact, when they should be contacted, how to advertise, etc. We set up an entire committee devoted solely to public relations, another to fundraising, another to the arts, and the list went on.

The events began on a Thursday evening, with two of our history professors and our Amnesty sponsors presenting a history of the commoditization of human beings and how this trade began. They did an excellent job providing an overview of the history while relating it to present circumstances. The following day, at the Whitman campus, there was a poetry/music recital featuring mainly women composers, and performed solely by women. It was a powerful event which was well attended. This was followed by an opening of the art gallery which had been an event that took enormous amounts of work.

Sabbath morning at the Awakening church service, one of our guest speakers from Hollywood came and spoke about trafficking, followed that evening by the screening of a documentary about human trafficking entitled Cargo: Innocence Lost. The film's producer was there for a panel discussion after the film, as well as actress and founder of Artists for Human Rights Anne Archer. The art auction took place after the film, with some amazing pieces being produced, many of them created solely for this event.

There was a brief hiatus in events, afterwhich the student association began their campus fundraising, which included events such as the now annual date auction and swim meet, as well as new events like Basketball tournaments and dorm competitions which are still going on.

Events continue, but to date, we have around $22,000 and an enormous increase in awareness. Consider me a happy Amnesty president.