Amnesty International is a global organization that focuses on human rights and social justice, with many chapters at universities and high schools, and here at Stevens, they have been continuing this line of work. Stevens Amnesty Club is another chapter, whose main projects at the moment include gaining the students’ support to speak out against mass deportations and advocate for justice in Palestine.
You may have heard of this club in the past couple of weeks due to the events they’ve planned; One of the more fun events that took place was “JAMnesty,” which was an open mic concert and a collaboration with other activism and cultural clubs at Stevens to help bring awareness to the mass deportations. If you weren’t one to take part in this, then maybe you saw the posters in front of the Walker Gymnasium that brought awareness to mass deportations happening in the U.S. at the moment during the National Week of Student Action. There are a lot of stories to be told about this club, most of which I uncovered when talking to the club’s president, Tanishka Kapoor, a ¾ Finance major. Stevens Amnesty is a “revival” club, which means it existed at some point but died out before being picked up again. Kapoor said that during COVID, the club had died down a lot, but it was brought back last year. This year’s goal was to be more consistent in planning events along with their ongoing weekly meetings. They have also brought back their Instagram, where they have been promoting the club and events frequently.
So, what is the purpose of Amnesty at Stevens? Talking with Kapoor a bit more and also another member of the E-board, Eliza Curran, they mentioned that the hope for the club was to make social justice feel more accessible to the “average” person. One of the main assumptions we make about why people don’t get involved is not because they don’t care about the problems, but because they don’t understand the problem or don’t feel any personal obligation. Even when talking to Kapoor, she mentioned that she “finds it hard to believe that if people knew everything” and then stops herself and continues saying “well, actually, I don’t know; there are people that wouldn’t take action even if they know,” which introduces the nuance of human behavior. People can know about an issue at hand and feel sympathetic towards it, but still not take action to engage. This is something that each person may feel differently towards, but nevertheless contributes to the lack of action across the board.
Curran mentioned in the interview that she acknowledges how difficult it can be for people to feel like taking action, as it can be very disheartening and discouraging to constantly see bad news. Curran explains, “ We have news that updates so fast, and a lot of especially young people who are tapped into it, and it comes out in a lot of ways […] You see a lot of anger and frustration, but you also see a lot of people being absolutely hopeless and devastated and don’t know what to do.” Because there is always so much information coming out, it’s easy to get desensitized to it, or feel like anything you do is worthless. This is also sometimes known as compassion fatigue, where the constant learning about others’ traumas can cause exhaustion and apathy toward oneself. But, Amnesty emphasizes that by showing up and coming to the events, you ARE doing something and you are doing enough.
The club can put people on a path and provide a place where people can take action. Many club meetings are spent having conversations about the current issues they are working on and how the members feel about it, and often this can be a great way to build new perspectives. By listening to others and challenging your beliefs, being in social justice spaces, or even by sharing events, fundraisers, and information on social media, you ARE helping the cause at hand, while doing it at your own comfort level.
With Amnesty, a conversation is started, and people gain the opportunity to learn more about the problem and hear different perspectives on it. Kapoor mentioned that one of the best ways to make people care about social justice issues is by sharing stories that make others empathize with the issues at hand, and it is that empathy that can drive unmotivated students and people in general to help out these movements. And that, I think, is the core of the answer to the question proposed earlier—“So what is the purpose of Amnesty at Stevens?”— is that it is simply to give the Stevens community a place to be active in social reform, but more importantly, a place to learn. While there are platforms of bigotry, this is a place to connect, to be heard, and to listen. It is a place where a student who may not have had an opinion about current social justice issues can leave feeling like they have learned something, and feel empowered to do more and learn more themselves. This is where someone at Stevens could go to learn more than just math, science, economics, but about the greater world, and who they want to be as a person in it.
