We’re all looking forward to getting back to business after Spring Break. We had another amazing meeting, thanks to Jesse, Audrey and Reena and we sold BeadforLife jewelry for International Women’s Day.
We hosted a waffle social at the Honors House on and it was a huge success! In addition to collecting close to 50 phones, we got together and wrote to our members of Congress, Congressional candidates and phoned SEC Commissioner Dan Gallagher, urging Congress not to be bullied by oil companies. We kept up the momentum on Saturday by participating in Orange & Blue Day. We made incoming freshman aware ONE and 39 of them signed the petition telling the Securities and Exchange Commission not to be bullied.
SGA featured OCC-UTEP in their campus organizations video.
Help us to help others save lives! If you’re an El Pasoan, please email us at onecampusutep@gmail.com or give Maegan a call at (915) 356-6000. If you’re a UTEP student, faculty or staff member… or if you just feel like cruising over to campus and spending a day with us, please do! Bring some of your old phones. Give us your old phone and we’ll give you a waffle. Give us two or more phones and we’ll give you a chance to win something awesome!
It’s been a busy last couple of weeks as we kick off a new semester and get back to advocating for the world’s poorest. We had our second meeting of the semester today. We were so excited to see that some of our new recruits were able to join us! And some brought phones to help Save Lives Through SMS!
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Graduate students from the Media & Social Change class wanted to highlight OCC at UTEP for their project! Obviously, we were thrilled to be asked and eager to participate.
We had a lot to contend with during this challenge. Not only were we approaching Dead Day, but the powers that be had us move our event’s location at the last minute. Nevertheless, we still reached some new students and we made a very important ally. Physician and UTEP professor Dr. Manuel Llano has made great strides in AIDS research and was so impressed with OCC that he said he’d help us bring in guest lecturers to discuss their work with preventable disease in the spring.
This is a quiet but by no means small triumph. We’re very excited to branch out and continue making alliances so that we can continue engaging our student community on a greater scale.
We sent over 100 letters to members of Congress and Congressional candidates. Our advocacy won’t stop here — we’re working to make closer connections in the very near future.
UTEP & the Agriculture Campaign
This week, OCC at UTEP lived on $1.50 a day for close to a week. Due to a number of factors, we felt that the best possible way for us to follow complete this challenge was if we all banded together. Nearly all of our active members participated and the results were pretty awesome. But, like all good challenges, we had our fair share of ordeals to contend as we embarked on this journey. Such as…
- Completely giving up the comforts of home. UTEP is a commuter campus, which means that there was no way we could possibly go to work/school and eat. Refueling our vehicles costs far more than a mere dollar and fifty cents, even if we carpooled. I don’t drive or own a car, nevertheless, I couldn’t ride the bus and have enough loose change to spare for a candy bar at the end of the day. (With my student ID, I’d be down to $0.50 at the end of my bus ride.) For most college students, going home means making the relatively short trek from their class or the library back to their dorm rooms. We don’t have that convenience, and because our staff advisor has never been anything but completely supportive of and enthusiastic about what OCC strives to accomplish, she allowed us use of the Honors House (her office and where The University Honors Program is located on the UTEP campus) for the duration of the week. We stored bags stuffed with our clothing and toiletries, sleeping bags, pillows and books in the back office, did our best to expand the little kitchenette area into a fully functioning kitchen so that we could actually cook instead of just nuking ramen, and slept scattered on the floor. It was uncomfortable, sure, but transportation got in the way of our personal comfort… In every respect.
- Where’re we supposed to shower again? We had access to a private bathroom, but no shower. If we wanted to get clean (and we did), we’d have to use the showers at the gym. The first night was rough as the water heater had just broken down and everyone was forced to scrub up in ice-cold water. The following day we learned that another gym had hot water on tap, but the shower stall partitions were flimsy nylon curtains that fanned out in all directions, even with very little water pressure. At least everyone was clean.
- Eating. Compared to sleeping and showering, eating turned out to be the least of my worries. As Audrey already noted, we had already made careful provisions to provide our shrinking stomachs with some sustenance. Our rations weren’t enough to fill us up, but as expected, it more clearly illustrated the point of our actions and why our advocacy efforts matter. Because I couldn’t “just eat”, even if our little makeshift pantry was stored with food without taking food away from another hungry person, every single bowl of rice and apple mattered that much more.
Overall, our friendships have strengthened and our desire to help those who need agriculture programs supported has only skyrocketed. More photos of this project as well as a video diary by Ahmad are forthcoming, but in the meantime, here’s Daniel sleeping in “his corner” of the Honors House this week. (He called it.)
- Maegan
