“Speak Out” to End Hunger

After participating in the IFYC Interfaith Leadership Institute in October 2010, several Georgetown students formed a Better Together Campaign steering committee and chose hunger as our social action issue.

We made this decision because hunger was a global problem that could be tackled on the local level. However, there are already a wide variety of student groups at Georgetown, and it is often difficult to generate interest through novelty. Indeed, a variety of Georgetown social justice groups were already engaged in helping the needy population of the DC-Metropolitan area. Also, since our school is a Catholic institution, Campus Ministry and faith groups are very active. By making hunger the focus of our campaign, we hoped to unite social justice groups and religious organizations with the same fundamental goals.

We recently organized an Oxfam America Hunger Banquet to focus on using interfaith efforts to encourage action about the world food crisis. As this was the first event in our campaign, it was an effective platform to “Speak Out” because we benefited from extensive Oxfam marketing resources and name-recognition.
Furthermore, we emphasized a symbolic partnership between interfaith groups (IFYC and the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs) and a social justice advocacy group (Oxfam). The social justice component of our event resonated with many; for example, the restaurant Qdoba was happy to donate all food for the event (free of charge) because we were affiliated with a charitable cause.

To generate curiosity and interest in the event, we piloted a unique idea: we posted a very large noticeboard that not only provided detailed information about our event, but posited questions such as “What is your secret wish for interfaith relations on campus?” We encouraged students to write short messages about their thoughts and post them anonymously for public display. By the day of the event, the board was covered with a variety of opinions, questions, and statements relating to our discussion topics.

During the event, we followed the Oxfam script, but also added frequent references to our campaign. Two religious chaplains (including the Head of Campus Ministry) were invited as guest speakers, and they reinforced the interfaith theme by analyzing the Biblical Parable of the Good Samaritan.

We concluded the event by showing a video of President Obama’s Interfaith Service Challenge, and giving a speech about the “Speak Out” and “Mobilize” stages of the campaign, and how our campus can “Sustain” in the future – because we know this is just the beginning of our work.

To read even more about this event, click here.

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