The University of Wyoming’s Service, Leadership and Community Engagement (SLCE) office hosted an Activism 101 panel Tuesday evening at the Union as part of the Good Mule Project, a series of events that promotes social activism.
“The Good Mule Project is an initiative that tends to focus around social justice and activism-type issues,” said Student Coordinator Connor Bergman. “The goal is to kind of bring light to those issues in a workshop style way so that digesting that information is a little easier than taking it like a shotgun blast.”
Sharing their areas of expertise and why they got involved in activism, the panel included Multi-Cultural Affairs Program Coordinator Natawsha Mitchell, Jenni Vazqueztell of Laramie Foster Closet, Executive Director of the Downtown Clinic Pete Gosar and student activist Jess Fahlsing.
“The piece of advice that I give to every student, and I’ve been saying this since I was an admissions tour guide, is go to everything with free food,” said Mitchell. Strangers tend to bond over food.
Activism can be about influencing the rest of the community as well as the University, panelists said. Still, another topic of discussion was how people can surround themselves with a smaller circle of people that doesn’t necessarily reflect a town or campus.
“A lot of the work I do is like a community — surround myself with people who are accepting and supportive,” Fahlsing said. “For me it’s really easy to forget … that there is a lot less visibility and support for queer people.” She noted Jackson and Laramie are the only towns in Wyoming that have ordinances banning discrimination against LGBTQ people.
Grassroots organizations and nonprofits can play a large part in creating dialogue and change. The speakers on the panel reminded students that nonprofits have to raise money with the help of their community.
“That is the work of a non-profit — you have this unbelievable work to do and then you have to go dance for your money,” said Gosar. The work nonprofits do can be difficult and does require funds. Nonprofit aren’t subject to the same sort of tax laws as other businesses but rely on charity events and supportive citizens to operate efficiently.
“You know we have a horrible business model here at the Downtown Clinic. We give our services away, you know. It sounds like you got a bad business model, right?” Gosar said, joking.
Gosar and the rest of the panel wanted to remind the community that they have to raise money to keep their doors open and that is one of the biggest ways the community can help the 18 nonprofits in Laramie.
Fahlsing told the students that if they wanted to get involved to take advantage of the freedom they have as youth.
“While you’re young you can do a lot of things and not be held quite to the same level of accountability as professionals,” Fahlsing said, “so don’t do anything absolutely wild or that might hurt you or get you in trouble later but take advantage of the freedom that you have when you are young. Stand on all the tables.”
Students who attended the events found it very useful to learn more about opportunities to be activists within their community.
“I think that just learning more about the different community organizations and all the involvement is pretty important,” Senior Clint Hossfield said. “So like coming to these events and learning about how we can be involved is pretty impactive I would say.”
“I think there’s an exposure to different things I had never thought about,” Junior Shailey Erickson said. “I had never thought about the foster care situation in Laramie or I had heard a little bit about students of color but it’s not something I had ever had real exposure to. So it’s more about learning what’s actually here and what we can all be advocates for and different parts of the community that need help,”
Hossfield also felt that learning to accommodate others is a way to serve the community.
“I think that getting involved in the community is more than just being involved in an organization sometimes. Like they talked about confronting your own biases and kind of widening your perspective,”said Hossfield. ”I think that’s good a way to be a part of your community is just learning to accommodate others in your everyday life.”
