The Activists Club, established in 2017, hosts meetings every other Friday to plan events for this year to increase student involvement with politics and their community.
The Activists Club is a non-partisan student-run organization. This club has focuses and goals for the future such as increasing students’ awareness of events happening in the environment and giving students the opportunity to take a stand and act on problems in the community. The club gives students the opportunity to, “identify your strengths and develop not only personal growth, but useful skills, public speaking and taking ideas from early stages to an action,” teacher sponsor Amy Buckingham said.
The club is led by senior president Nico D’orazio, vice presidents Emily Liu and Maddy Matthew, secretary Suqi Zhou, researcher Divya Subramanian and public relations coordinator Katie Hwang. The teacher sponsor wanted the student leaders of this club to have control because she believes a student-run organization gives them more freedom and responsibility. “I believe in the value of student leadership and student choice. I want them to be able to identify areas of passion and need,” Buckingham said.
This club’s meetings are held every other Friday in room 181 during lunch. The president wanted to have the club be productive, but also knows that students have other clubs or things to do during lunch so he wanted to make the meetings manageable for the members. The club offers SSL hours for those who go to the SMOB Forums. At every meeting, the officers bring donuts for the members to get them excited and motivated.
Before there were only two candidates for SMOB, a larger pool of students ran. Then after a nominating convention, the number of candidates is slimmed down to two. A SMOB Forum is an annual event that the Activists run where all of the SMOB candidates come to the school to answer questions, respond to student concerns and describe how they would address them if elected as SMOB. All students are allowed to attend and ask questions and it, “is a good way for students to get informed about the person they are voting for,” Matthew said.
This year there are even more events planned for the Activists. The main focus of this club is being involved with the community and making a positive change in it so this year they plan on having activism nights, having a successful SMOB and even going to a protest. So for people who care about discussing politics and their environment, joining this club gives them the chance they have been looking for to make a change.
D’Orazio believes that the club being student-led opens it up to more ideas and political points of view. The club focuses a lot of its discussions on matters and events that go on in the community. Having students lead meetings and other club events encourages the members to speak more freely about their own beliefs. “We’re all free to share our different political viewpoints. It helps bring in new ideas,” D’Orazio said.
