Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” This quote was relevant years ago, still is today and will be for years to come.
As students, we have countless responsibilities. Many of us have to juggle keeping up in all of our classes, working a part-time job, paying rent and partaking in regular physical activities among other things. On top of all of this, we also have a responsibility to be activists.
The Equinox believes that it is crucial for our generation to be as proactive as possible and start civic engagement as early on as we can. Now is our time to not only advocate for change but to ensure that these changes actually come about.
Keene State College students have recently been activists, exemplified by the Campus Ecology Club who attended The People’s Climate March on Sept. 21, 2014 in New York City.
Philip Bergeron / Graphic Design Editor
This march was the largest climate march in history with about 400,000 participants in which 50,000 of them were college students according to peoplesclimate.org. Out of those 50,000 students, 28 of them were from KSC.
We believe that it is not enough to simply be educated. Instead, we must do what those 50,000 college students did and take our education and apply it by participating in activism for various issues.
Take for example, women’s rights. You could take a women and genders studies course and become aware of the ways in which women face oppression.
However, it is not merely enough to just be knowledgeable about these issues. What will truly create change is when we put ourselves out there and start advocating for these rights we have learned that women don’t have.
We must go to conventions, speak up, write articles—let the world know about the problems that are born from gender inequality and fight to make the necessary changes. It’s important to make these problems public so the need of change is acknowledged.
We want our voices heard to prove issues like this exist. We need to make sure to activate change because we are the future and what we do now determines our social environment to come.
We understand that being educated is an essential first step in trying to create change, but that does not mean that we can stop there. The whole purpose of being educated is not to have that knowledge sit uselessly in our heads. Rather, we should take this information and put it to use.
Although it can be challenging to keep these issues in the forefront of our everyday lives, it is imperative that we all do our part and contribute. Even if the issue at hand does not affect us directly, it likely affects somebody in our lives whether we know it about them or not. For that reason alone, we should feel it is our duty to make a contribution to a change for the better.
After all, if we don’t do anything we will be affected. It’s important to be prepared now in order to develop a social environment in which we want to live in; a place where we don’t breath in air pollution, there’s gender equality and LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] rights.
We can either contribute to these problems, or we can actively create ways to remedy these issues and help keep the world alive and well. If we fail to do so, we can really only blame ourselves.
We may not have caused all the issues we face in today’s world, but we do have the power to try to make monumental changes for future generations to come if we all work together proactively.
Some might say, “We’re doomed if we do try, we’re doomed if we don’t. So what’s the point?” But we want to encourage you, even if you’re standing alone, you have the ability to change the world. Don’t let people around you with that negative mentality convince you otherwise.
You never know when your one act of courage to speak up and stand alone can influence other people to get up and do the same. When everyone takes action together, we have more power than we may realize.
