it all started as a joke. me and a couple of friends trying, as we so often do, to mock our country's violent reality, so that we can forget that we're a part of it. at least for a minute.
in guatemala we celebrate valentine's day, on february 14th (US influence, as random as that is, haha). but it is somewhat hard to get in the mood when all you hear about and read about in the papers is violence: killings, thefts, carjacks, kidnappings, extortion...it's not pretty.
well, we said: "let's do something about it". but what can 3 girls do? well...now i know: A LOT. we knew that we couldn't do much just the three of us, we needed more people to join us. so...
on the 14th most people dress in red. it's almost weird, haha. well, we summoned every student of our university through facebook (oh...soon i have to write a post about how i love fb!!! haha) to dress in red as a protest against violence inside and off campus. that was easy, we got a lot os support, and probably half the people weren't even aware of the fact that they we're supporting us- it was great. we also asked for 15 minutes of their time, to lie, under a tree, as dead bodies. that isn't a lot to ask for is it??? well, a lot of people didn't think it was 'cause a lot came. it was truly fantastic.
now we have a list of names and e-mail addresses of people willing to commit to this cause and participate in formulating ideas on how to address the problem of violence inside and off campus.
the university responded too! a few hours later every uni student received a letter from the Dean telling us she supported the cause and that the university was willing to take measures to make us feel more safe, at least in campus.
this might not seem like a lot to people from other countries, developed countries, where students pull stuff like this all the time. the reason why this is such an accomplishment to us is because this isn't a common thing among uni students in guatemala. this kind of manifestation is a breakthrough, a breakthrough violent protests, a breakthrough fear of participating, a breakthrough silence...
this is not the end of this movement. we're just getting started!
No comments:
Post a Comment