From the desk of: The Student’s Anti-Discrimination Committee
Written by: Everett Johnson a Year 12 student in his first year at Campus des Nations. Member of the Student Council, Secretary of the Students’ Anti-Discrimination Committee and a Reporter for Nation’s Voice.
The 4th of November 2020 was the first meeting of the Anti-Discrimination Committee and it has now been a little more than 3 years since the beginning of the group. With the fourth leadership team elected and a core team established, the committee has been continuing on fulfilling its vision of eradicating discrimination of all kinds at our school. Here is what we’ve been up to this year.
August & September
Diya Mundade and Sam Owen run a staff meeting educating staff members on work done by the Anti-Discrimination Committee and promoting the newly created Language Guidelines.
Photo Credit: Ecolint Instagram Account
In August, the committee kicked off its fourth year with a meeting, welcoming a host of new members, describing the committee's work, and recapping the successes of the past year.
September began with a round of elections as the committee elected a new leadership team and a social media manager. Elliot Turner was successfully reelected President of the committee, Siddesh Pujari emerged from a crowded field to assume the role of Vice-President, and with Everett Johnson as Secretary. Noah Cross assumed the role of Social-Media manager, a position left open in prior years, filled to increase the presence of the committee on social media. September included conversations on the committee's agenda for the year leftover projects, from the year prior, were continued, this time with new members.
Additionally, the leadership team did away with committees focused on specific types of discrimination and moved to a project based model that meant more flexibility for group members to shift around based on their interests and more agility for the committee to be able to respond to pressing, immediate issues within the school.
The prior leadership team continued their tour of staff meetings across the foundation speaking about the language guidelines they developed to ensure communication void of discriminatory language.
October
Diya Mundade (Right), Arthur Nijenhuis (Left), and Rosanna Reis (Center) construct the Gender Equality, Purple Hearts Art Installation.
Photo Credit: Everett Johnson
October began with Elliot and myself acting in our role as members of the leadership team with the delivery of a talk “Supporting IDEAS in I-DEA: students on student agency” during the I-DEA Pedagogical day on Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Anti-Racism. During PED day we spoke with members of the community across the foundation and formed bonds with teachers at La Chât as they pursue their own anti-discrimination objectives. I spoke in my role as secretary and as a student council member at the I-DEA Training for Middle-Managers about the need for inclusivity in schools.
Through October various projects picked up steam, while other members began working on their own initiatives.
The Origami hearts project continued with work on building a frame for the origami hearts created by mentor groups on International Women's Day. The end product will be an installation above a fourth floor staircase.
The Langue de Signes Françaises project: worked on developing digital mockups of their project and for each letter of the alphabet. With the eventual goal of showcasing the French Sign Language alphabet, it will hang over the fourth floor staircase.
The Comprehensive Sex-Education Initiative: was born out of a need for more comprehensive Sex-Education to ensure all students were included. They discussed potential solutions to fill this gap and their thoughts and ideas were passed on to Mr. Williams.
The Neurodivergence Visibility Group: was newly introduced and started by identifying areas in which the school could improve support for its neurodivergent students.
The Religious and Cultural Holidays Stand project launched and began hosting monthly stands in the cafeteria in which students could learn about different cultural and religious events occurring that month to increase students' knowledge and understanding of various cultures and the events they celebrate.
November
2023-2024 Leadership Team at the United Nations President Elliot Turner (Center), Vice-President Siddesh Pujari (Right), and Secretary Everett Johnson (Left)
Photo Credit: Everett Johnson
The Leadership Team began a series of mentor sessions with the MYP Year groups on language and ensuring that kindness and thoughtfulness about intent versus impact are at the heart of their conversations with others.
The Physical and Health Education department committed to a curriculum review in which representatives from the Anti-Discrimination Committee will be meeting with the PHE department to review the curriculum and ensure that what is being taught includes all members of our community in the pursuit of physical well-being.
Siddesh Pujari also hosted a well received Diwali assembly that included dancing, music, and a fashion show in a celebration of Indian culture. The Diwali assembly was the first across the foundation and will hopefully spur understanding within our community.
The Nations I-DEA committee began which encompassess members from all parts of our community, parents, students, and staff. The Anti-Discrimination committee was represented by the Leadership Team who joined 3 different focus groups. Opportunity to join at this link: Join.
The Foundation wide I-DEA Design Team also began and various issues pertaining to I-DEA were discussed.
December & January
December consisted of the teams getting their projects either completed or near completion in preparation for the renewal of initiatives in the new year. The Comprehensive Sex-Education Team submitted a brief and presentation on what the needs of the student body were to our principal Mr. Williams. In the beginning of what will become a collaboration between Nations and La Chât campuses, Our secretary spoke to a group of Year 6 students at La Chât working on their PYP personal projects and encouraged them to pursue their passions and gave examples for potential projects relating to Sustainable Development Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities. A goal that our committee aids in achieving every day we meet, every conversation we have, and every project we complete. We also met with the founding members of the La Chât students I-DEA group and advised them on the structure of our committee and discussed the potential for future collaboration.
January came and conversations around the goals of the committee over the upcoming year were developed. The Neurodivergence Visibility group formally launched after meeting with the Extended Support Program. The Langue de Signes Française project finished their work and all that is left is hanging their installation. The Purple Hearts project is nearing completion and the PYP Kindness initiative began after meetings with Primary Assistant Principal Ms. Ross.
All of this is to say that the Anti-Discrimination committee is alive and well. Our commitment to the students of our community lives in every meeting, every debrief, and every project we complete. While our goal to eradicate discrimination of all kinds at our school, whether it be in terms of race, sex, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, ability, socio-economic background, or physical appearance may seem a lofty one. Everyday we get to work together to try and scale that summit and include and accept every member of our diverse community equally.
If you want to join us in that mission subscribe to our weekly debrief here: Debrief Mailing List
Our Instagram is @antidiscriminations
Our meetings are every Tuesday at 3:30 in Room 506.