By Michele M. Vella, edited by Jim Luce.
“Did you ever read The Kite Runner?,” asked 17-year-old Aiza, her neck stretching around the contours of the desk so the graduate student speaker from Afghanistan could identify the face of the questioning voice.
CMA students participate in a virtual panel with United Nations Academic Impact and The Commission on the Status of Women.
Aiza sat behind the last seat in a row of 6 girls, a blend of friends and sisters from Pakistan and Guyana. In Mr. Healey’s classroom, the bi-monthly meeting space for the Committee for Multicultural Affairs (CMA) of East Stroudsburg South High School, students’ sat in a suspended state of attention, completely unconcerned about differences in faith, socio-economic status, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, or ability level. All eyes looked towards the speaker, waiting for her response, as if this were the most pressing question. A simple affirmation or negation contained within it much more than an answer.
Mr. Healey and Mrs. Cynthia Mutere representing the U.N. ECOSOC The League of Kenyan Women Voters.
And the 25 CMA students’ almost mesmerized awe at ordinary people affirming the necessity of doing extraordinary things for social instead of self benefit would replicate itself in the second half of the day’s meeting. Karl Brisseaux and Uhuru “Freedom” Aseto, recent engineering graduates of Haitian and Kenyan descent and belonging to the historical African American fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi, spoke of their tripartite commitment to service learning, social justice, and academic excellence.
CMA students type in a question to psychologists on the UNAI virtual panel on international mental health
After the meeting, the students flocked to the front of the room with arms and hands extended to introduce themselves to the day’s speakers. Posing for a photo, the five graduating senior members, the first generation in their families to attend college, spoke of what they would do with their intended academic paths and not just what they expected to gain.
A CMA student talks to a local news channel about the groups’ mission statement and fundraiser for Haiti.
The success of the year is told in the classroom walls’ narrative collage.
CMA students with graduate student speaker from Afghanistan Fauzia Nuristani and members of Kappa Alpha Psi, Karl Brisseaux and Uhuru Aseto.
After stenciled posters of the Millennium Development Goals, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 10 educational principles of U.N. Academic Impact, clipped articles and still pictures capture students not just imagining or reading about what it means to be a global citizen but acting as global citizens: asking a visiting Fulbright Scholar from the Republic of Congo about educational inequity; learning the framework of Amnesty of International; virtually interacting with two U.N. Academic panels on promoting women’s rights and international mental health awareness; packing boxes of medical supplies, food, and clothing raised for a non-governmental organizations’ relief mission to Haiti; modeling tee-shirts made for the Japan relief efforts; listening to a representative from the U.N. ECOSOC The League of Kenyan Women Voters educate on gender based violence; a yet to-be developed photo of Aiza seeing herself in the Islamic and Afghani graduate student speaker before her.
CMA students pack and load goods collected for Haiti.
In a rural economically disadvantaged school district just 75 miles away from New York City, this group of transplanted students from countries including Pakistan, Guyana, Ghana, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Trinidad, Poland, Peru, Colombia, and China, brought the meaning of global citizenship into their classrooms, into their community.
After the picture is taken, Mr. Healey makes the last announcement of the year. The student group, originating as an outlet for students to acknowledge and celebrate their international roots and intersecting identities, will be undergoing a name change. They now have been recognized as a United Nations Academic Impact ASPIRE High School chapter.
Michele M. Vella, MS, MA, Med. is a doctoral candidate in counseling psychology at Lehigh University with a research interest in domestic and international mental and physical healthcare disparities in ethnic and racial minority populations with a special emphasis on psychological adjustment and resiliency in environments affected by war/poverty/disaster. Michele is an intern with UNDPI, lead writer and facilitator of the 55th Session on the Commission of the Status of Women’s Girl’s Statement, and an American Psychological Association Minority MHSAS Pre-doctoral Policy Fellow. She holds an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia, an M.A. in Spanish from CUNY, and a M.Ed. in Counseling and Human Services from Lehigh. Michele also serves as Global Advisor to the International University Center Haiti (Uni Haiti), which is a member of the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI).
See Stories by Jim Luce on:
Afghanistan | Africa | China | Haiti | Pakistan
Peace | Social Responsibility | United Nations