The New Social Worker Vol. 20, No. 4, Fall 2013 | Page 18

The Power of Social Work Students:
A Call to Action on Violence Against Women
by Nora Smyth, Helen Garcia, and Ande Nesmith, Ph.D., MSW
Transforming Passion Into
Action—Student perspective

S

ocial work students have power
to spark change, yet many feel
they must wait until they become
professional social workers before they
can legitimately take action. We want to
share how our inspiration about a social
justice issue led us to raise awareness and
action in our university community. We
also include a professor’s perspective, because faculty can play an important role
in encouraging and supporting students.

As undergraduate juniors, we
started a student group, Women Against
Domestic Violence, to raise awareness,
engage, and empower others to transform the issue from something society
“manages” to something society actively
works to abolish. Gender-based violence
is not just a “fact of life.” We have to
start responding to violence collectively,
sharing resources and knowledge. Most
importantly, we must believe that change
is possible and not radical.

We asked ourselves, “What are
modern methods to inspire a new
generation of advocates? How do we
recruit people and get them excited
about this issue?” We explored modern
methods in social movements by learning about online toolkits that have all
the components to stage a large event
that will draw a crowd. In our case, we
used the Half the Sky toolkit, a movement started by Sheryl WuDunn and
Nicholas Kristof to, in their words, “turn
oppression into opportunity for women
worldwide.”

We were hoping around 100 people
would come to our event, and had tables
and food for 125, just to be safe. The
tables filled immediately, yet people
kept pouring in. The food ran out, but
students and faculty continued to arrive.
More chairs were delivered until there
was only standing room. Still more came,
until the large ballroom was absolutely
packed. Since this event, our student
group filled with new members. More
events are in the making. Some social
work students have even been in communication with one of the women leaders in the documentary and are planning
to go to Somaliland to engage in social

16

The New Social Worker

student body. Other organizations, staff,
work there. We wanted to get the word
and faculty warned us that despite our
out and bring attention to the issue of
efforts, we should expect a low turnout.
violence and oppression against women
They urged us to plan with this in mind—
and girls, and we did it.

The event was a huge success, and
smaller space, less food, request fewer
it took perseverance to pull it off. This
resources, anticipate apathy. It is not that
is the story we want to share here, so
their warnings were unfair. Apathy, timing, and busy schedules commonly result
others, too, will press on. Our message
to other social work students is: “Awarein low turnout for campus events.
ness is the first step,
but it won’t happen
in a vacuum. So start
now, do anything,
plant the seed, and
watch it grow.”

The online toolkit provided us with
a 40-minute Half the
Sky documentary—a
powerful combination
of personal stories of
horrible sexual violence against women
and girls juxtaposed
with stories of courage and success in
the fight against it. It
proved to leave people feeling enraged,
yet empowered to
do something. We
wanted our audience
to see the local effect,
as well, so we brought
in a panel of local
experts on domestic
violence, law enforcement, and survivors. Helen Garcia and Nora Smyth show off a t-shirt designed to promote

As students, the awareness of gender-based violence.
prospect of throwing
Instead of scaling back, we redoubled
a big event was daunting to us. There
were many steps to take, forms to fill out,
our efforts. We attended to every detail
and other preparations. Events can be
that might encourage attendance, startexpensive and time-consuming, so we
ing with promotion. We got our event
learned the importance of collaborators
advertised on electronic campus screens,
and sponsors. We engaged other student
online, in flyers, and in display cases.
organizations to support the cause, whi ??)]??????????????????????????????)????????????????????????????????)???????????????=??????????????]?????????????????????????????????)???????????????????????????????)??????????????????????????????)????????????????????????????)?????????????????????Q??????)??????????????????????????????????)?????????????????????????????)]????????????????????????????????)????????????????????????????Q???)???????????????????????????????)????????????????)?????????????????????????????????($)Q??????????????????????????????)]????????????????????????????)???????????????????????????????????????)????Q????????????()????????((