From the annual Thanksgiving Food Drive to the Kids Voting initiative, the Community and Civic Engagement office is creating a path towards change one step at a time. The next step was ‘Iolani’s first ever Civic Engagement Week. Ranging from debates to a nonprofit fair, the week was an initiative for students to learn the importance of Civic Engagement.
During the week of Nov. 10 to Nov. 14, Civic Engagement Week was held, with workshops emphasizing building skills that empower students to get involved in their community. Every day had a theme with correlating workshops and activities. Led by Ms. Candice Sakuda ’95, Dr. Amanda Christie, and The Alliance for Civic Engagement (ACE) , they’re creating a pathway to help students be engaged with their community.
The idea of Civic Engagement Week started during the summer when a bunch of teachers got together discussing what civic engagement looks like in our classrooms and what it means for our school. The overarching question was, “How do we build skills that will empower students and make it just second nature almost or like a habit for them to be engaged?” After the discussions, Dr. Christie had the idea of creating a week dedicated to teaching students after wondering, “how can I get this information out to as many people as possible?” With the help from the ACE team which is composed of all students, they were able to make the week happen.
Ms. Sakuda stressed the importance of having the week be primarily student-led, so it could build more of a connection with students. Student-led decisions helped create events that would be most important for them and their peers.
Using the knowledge learned from Civic Engagement Week as well as in a classroom, real change can happen. Ms. Sakuda said, “These are all different lenses and tools for engaging in the real world. We need all of the different disciplines to address a problem. So I feel like this is a way of synthesizing all of that stuff that we’re memorizing, taking tests for.
If we can bring it together, this is how we really address problems in our world.”
Ms. Sakuda believes that, “Hopefully, students can see that they don’t have to embark on this journey of civic engagement alone.” At the Civic Engagement Fair, there were many non-profits to join or support, so you don’t have to be alone. Ms. Sakuda shared that joining clubs at school like Citizens’ Climate Lobby is a way to get engaged with the community while having support from others.
Ms. Sakuda mentioned that a quick act can make a difference, but there are ways to go farther. She said, “We can take action across the whole spectrum of ways, on one end is like a quick thing. You could just give a can at the food drive, but you can go deeper and offer service and try to understand and address the root causes of the problem. And then you can go deeper and realize that there’s a whole system that’s driving and perpetuating the problem.”
Civic Engagement Week was a chance for students to learn skills and feel empowered to make change, and was an introduction to which Ms. Sakuda, Dr. Christie and the ACE team hopes to grow. Ms. Sakuda stated, “Ultimately, a really big goal is that students start to become more involved long term.
This is just the way of initial introduction, but maybe then they’ll be inspired to get connected into their communities and do more work.”