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Each year the senior social work class at WCSU has a two semester long community organizing class. The class of 2001, which consists of 21 students, created a project to bring awareness and education to the community, and to encourage the prevention of hate crimes. Below is a synapsis of the work our class accomplished:

An educational program to promote interracial and intercultural diversity and acceptance tailored to teens at five different teen centers. Presentations include video clips, discussions and experiential learning.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, located in Montgomery, Alabama, supplied us with videos, texts, and pamphlets from their Teaching Tolerance program. We were so impressed with this organization that fights hate crimes on a national level, we decided to join forces with them and support the National Campaign for Tolerance by becoming founding members.

Several students collaborated with the Vice President of Student Affairs to host an open forum. Community leaders were invited to participate on a panel, and invitations were extended to students, faculty, staff, and the entire community. Refreshments were donated.

An abundance of educational materials were collected and developed by a group of students (news, magazine, and journal articles, books, videos, websites, national organizations, bibliographies, and reference lists) for distribution at our activities, and are available via this website.

A poster exhibit featuring artwork and text from Teaching Tolerance magazine.

We were participants in Danbury High School’s “Alternatives to Violence Week.” We created an atmosphere in which the college students, who are from diverse cultural backgrounds, presented themselves as role models and mentors for the adolescents. The week included: creating a “Stop the Hate” mural, and a group discussion after viewing the video A Shadow of Hate: A History of Intolerance in America

We were invited to participate in Broadview Middle School’s “Stop the Violence Week.”

Representatives from our class were asked to speak about our endeavor and its success at the annual Connecticut State Universities BSW conference.

A website was created for information, updates on our latest events, and hate crime service linkages.

Letters were written to over one hundred preschools, elementary, middle, and high schools from seven municipalities in the Greater Danbury area. These letters brought awareness and educational opportunities to many classrooms by encouraging and urging principals and educational directors to order and make use of free educational materials for teaching interracial and intercultural understanding as a means to prevent future criminal acts of hate. Several have responded expressing appreciation and committing to our efforts.

The Western Connecticut State University Public Safety brochure, which reports campus crimes has been changed at our request to include a hate crime category.

Letters asking for support for hate crimes legislation were sent to all U.S Senators.

Speakers delivered speeches pertaining to hate crimes and violence during the month of April.

The outcomes of our efforts are immeasurable. We estimate that more than 16,000 people were affected by our project. We feel confident that the awareness raised by our project will help in maintaining Connecticut’s stringent policies against the perpetration of hate crimes. We hope that the publicity from our project will ignite others into action for a similar social cause.

Thanks go out to Terri for this synapsis of our work.