During the past week, the student groups Hopkins Helping the Homeless and Students for Environmental Action each hosted a panel of guest speakers, inviting Hopkins students to become involved in an effort to raise awareness for pressing social and environmental issues beyond campus.
Hopkins Helping the Homeless featured speakers from Faces of Homelessness Speakers’ Bureau, a national organization, to not only educate students with facts and first-person accounts about homelessness, but to also suggest ways students can directly help. Students for Environmental Action similarly presented a distinguished panel of speakers, along with a free dinner and screening of the environmental documentary Gasland to raise awareness about the dangers of hydraulic fracturing — a technology that increases the production of gas at the cost of environmental pollution and serious health risks.
This page applauds these student-run initiatives for raising awareness about ongoing issues outside the Hopkins community. Educating undergraduates about fracking is particularly important because Hopkins prides itself on its science background, but many students are admittedly unaware of what fracking really is. Additionally, Hopkins Helping the Homeless has exemplified praiseworthy dedication to its cause by adopting a grassroots approach to tackle its targeted issue around campus: implementing direct methods of help, such as the distribution of personal hygiene kits and fundraising for the publication of writing by the homeless.
It is likewise commendable that these initiatives are inviting Hopkins students to engage in activities, discussions and events with purposeful goals that address real issues. It would be useful to diversify these types of initiatives to attract more students according to their studies or personal interests. The number of attendees to both events was modest, but these awareness and outreach initiatives are a promising start to more student involvement both on campus and in the surrounding community.
