Standing Up

This semester I have gotten much more involved in UNDA campus life, and I love being busy with different events that are taking place. These past two Wednesdays have been particularly eventful. Wednesdays are normally my day off, so I go to the city to get lunch with Cheryl, but last Wednesday we celebrated Multicultural Day here at Notre Dame. This year's theme was "The Americas," and my role was to organize 5 students including myself who had volunteered to have a stand about their country. I got the opportunity to meet some really awesome international students from Columbia, El Salvador, Ecuador, and Canada, as well as my friend Bruno from Brazil who kept me company at the USA stand all day. Each of us had a bulletin board filled with facts about our countries of birth and samples of food ranging from PB&Js (which are uncommon here) to maple syrup candies from Canada to bananas with sweetened condensed milk from Ecuador and guacamole from Columbia. Mmmm! I got lots of curious looks for my PB&J, some disgusted faces, and many compliments and "Ooooh! This is better than it sounds!" That's right - Americans know whats up! I wrapped up the day with some tossing of the American football around the common room - always a blast!

This Wednesday I was a part of another group putting on an event at campus - this time Stand Up Against Poverty! I am a part of a group of 7 students from UNDA who are going to Tanzania in November as a part of a Caritas Australia immersion trip. As a part of our class we have been learning about poverty and development and what we can do to help. As a part of our commitment, we decided to hold and event with this year's Stand Up theme: MAKE NOISE!!! The seven of us got a drumming and dance group to come in and make some noise for us as we read out the Stand Up pledge in front of the crowd in the courtyard and counted all those who stood up against poverty. This is a worldwide event happening over the next two days, so maybe there's an event near you! You can check it out at http://standagainstpoverty.org/suap/.

Both events were a great success and it was a fun way to spend my day off.
You can check out an article about multicultural day here (where I am mentioned):
http://www.nd.edu.au/news/media-releases/2010/media_release_9_9_2010_multiCultural.shtml

and another article about Stand Up here, with 4 of us pictured:
http://epaper.communitynews.com.au/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=RkcvMjAxMC8wOS8wNyNBcjAwMzAy&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom

Next on my agenda? Papers, papers, papers! I cannot believe we are coming up to our mid-semester break! Yikes! Time has flown by and before I know it I'll be on a plane to Tanzania. Can't wait!

Make sure you get your voices heard today - stand up against poverty and MAKE SOME NOISE!!!

~Megan