The halls of Northwood are filled with glitter-covered, rainbow-clad students wearing women’s rights and Black Lives Matter attire. Their hands show red X’s, and a few are displaying colorful celebrations of their cultural heritage. This is Human Rights Week.
Northwood’s chapter of Girls Learn International is responsible. In an effort to raise awareness about prominent social issues and celebrate the cultural diversity at Northwood, GLI hosted a week-long activity similar to Spirit Week.
“We really wanted to come up with a week that represented a lot of Northwood’s diversity,” said sophomore Monica Alvarado, a GLI member. “Spirit week isn’t really a diverse thing, it’s more of a fun thing, so we wanted to come up with a way to represent each and every student that comes here and ever feels left out.”
Each day of the week was dedicated to a different cause: Monday to human trafficking, Tuesday to the Black Lives Matter movement, Wednesday to the LGBT+ community, Thursday to cultural appreciation and Friday to women’s rights.
GLI teamed up with other Northwood organizations—My Sister’s Keeper, Pride and Student Council—to distribute information and “swag” related to the causes along. They also offered opportunities to donate to related charities.
“We really just wanted to make a small difference in Northwood, and really you can’t change anyone’s mind overnight, but we were just hoping to introduce, inform and educate new people about these problems within our society,” said freshman Shamar Wilson, a GLI member.
Despite GLI’s establishment as an organization dedicated to women’s rights, the group wanted to use this opportunity to emphasize other social issues as well.
“I think part of the importance of being a women’s rights club is being inclusive of everybody,” said sophomore Madison James, GLI co-president. “Having that intersectionality is really important for us, because we really try to emphasize that everyone is different, but we’re all the same.”
Northwood’s chapter of GLI was instituted earlier this year by co-founders Meera Butalia, Katie Fuller and Madison James. Their reason for starting the group was largely because of their desire to do projects that raise awareness, like Human Rights Week.
“We first thought of the idea to start a women’s rights club right before the election during all that political chaos,” said sophomore Katie Fuller, GLI co-president. “Once Trump won, we felt even more of a need to do so because we felt like the atmosphere around Northwood was getting so misinformed and hateful. So we thought that creating a club like GLI, where it was already an international thing and just adding a chapter of our own, would be a good way to bring our ideals and opinions to Northwood in a more civilized manner.”
GLI members want to emphasize their dedication to social change beyond any one topic.
“We really just want to make a difference for everybody,” Wilson said. “We know that a lot of people just think of us as a feminist group, but that’s not what we are. We try to benefit everybody.”
– By Lanna Read
