HANNA CHU
Staff Writer
Most Pepperdine students spend most of their time at the beach, occasionally dragging themselves to the library to study, right? This is a common misconception.
Pepperdine students are highly involved in affecting change to social issues around the world.
International Justice Mission is an organization with members who work to spread awareness on campus about human rights injustices and to take legal action to rescue victims.
“I got involved with IJM the semester after my return from the Thailand Service Learning program through Pepperdine in 2003, led by Mike Anderson,” said Andrea Docherty, senior and president of IJM. “We learned about the oppressive situation in Burma while we were in Thailand and I decided that I wanted to be part of working against these and other violations of human rights.”
Docherty joined IJM in 2003 also because it “highly values prayer as a catalyst for positive change in oppressive situations.” She took a leadership position in 2003 as the prayer coordinator.
This year, Docherty led IJM as president and has helped organize several events and writing campaigns. One letter-writing campaign pressed the U.S. government to put pressure on Burma to free Min Ko Naing, a political prisoner who had been detained since March 1989.
“Just a couple of weeks ago, we found out that Min Ko Naing was finally freed. It shows that our efforts with efforts around the world really do make a difference,” said junior Courtney Murphy.
More recently, IJM has begun focusing on human-rights injustices in North Korea.
“I went to a presentation about North Korea that IJM organized because I didn’t really know what the situation was in North Korea excluding the fact that they had nuclear weapons,” said junior Christie Blackwood. “After the presentation, I felt like we needed to do more, and we aren’t doing enough to help the North Koreans.”
North Korea is currently the most closed off country in the world, and according to Newsweek magazine, it has the most cases of human rights violations today.
“Did you know that the famine in North Korea is killing everyone there, and their government isn’t doing anything about it? That’s why I want to do something or anything to help out the situation there,” Murphy said.
Action accompanies awareness in IJM.
“I had come across headlines, but I didn’t fully understand what it meant to someone that lived there,” said Jason Parker, a missionary in China who works with North Korean refugees. “When I got to hear some stories directly from people who lived in North Korea who came to China, it gave me a greater sense of calling to share the gospel because through the gospel, other social needs can be met.”
While studying business at the University of Southern California, Parker realized that he did not want to just pursue money and wealth.
“If you know about it and you just sit there silently and look on without an effort to do something, then you’re not any better than those promoting injustice,” Parker said.
Parker left for China in the beginning of 2003 and is a long-term missionary there now.
The Convocation Office has also taken part in raising awareness about the human rights violations in North Korea.
Larisa Hamada, the intercultural programs director, arranged for Helie Lee to speak at a Convocation in October. Helie Lee is the author of the national bestseller “Still Life with Rice” and “In the Absence of Sun.”
“I think a lot of students don’t think of North Korea very often when they think of human rights,” Hamada said. “They think of Africa or Afghanistan. We want to help students think about outside the box.”
During Convocation, Lee spoke about growing up in Woodland Hills, Calif., and how an American girl like herself was able to take part in rescuing family members from North Korea.
“This is a very small world,” Lee said. “What happens around the world affects us here because we’re all connected.”
This is the attitude that drives students like Docherty to be involved in spreading awareness about injustices around the world.
“As a person who believes in God, I believe it is important to be involved in what’s going on around the world because God doesn’t differentiate between people as we do,” Docherty said. “It is important for me to do my best to exemplify his indiscriminate concern for the world.”
Another student who is committed to working with human-rights abuses is Jenna Clapper, the president of Amnesty International.
Clapper got involved with Amnesty during her freshman year and said that it “opened my eyes to all the injustice in the world that can be so easy to skim over in the news.”
This semester, Amnesty has focused on issues such as the Sudan crisis, the death penalty, women’s rights and children soldiers, writing letters and raising awareness on campus. They also hosted a human rights coffeehouse with IJM on Nov. 19.
Clapper has worked with Hamada to help organize the Week of Peace, Hope and Justice this week.
“We hope to impact the community by letting them know that they really can help stop human rights abuses, and such issues are really worth being knowledgeable about,” Clapper said.
01-20-2005