Suggested activities leading up to the Day of National Concern
Parents,
community groups, and churches can enhance the effectiveness of
the Day of National Concern about Young People and Gun Violence by building
towards it:
- with panels, forums, and community discussions about young people
and gun violence;
- in activities in churches and synagogues that convey the caring and
concern of ministers, priests, rabbis and congregations for our young;
- in private conversations with young people that stress the importance
of the decision they will be making on October 20, 2004 and the opprotunity
for change that this day affords.
Schools and teachers can create a context for the Day of Concern and distribution
of the Student Pledge by encouraging activities that might include the following:
- Art teachers might ask students to design posters or create quilt
squares in memory of someone they know or have heard of who has been
shot;
- English teachers might encourage writing projects such as poems, short
stories, or song lyrics on gun violence;
- Science teachers might lead students to plant daffodils or other bulbs
-- even a tree -- in memory of young people who have been shot and as
a form of commitment to new life and a safer future;
- Social Studies teachers might invite an emergency room physician to
speak to students about how it feels to operate on a gun-shot victim
and lose that person -- how it feels to have to inform parents of their
loss.
Individiuals can play an important role in assuring that the Student Pledge
Against Gun Violence has widespread distibution:
- They can talk to the school superintendent, principals, teachers,
and PTA head of their local schools and ask that the Pledge be distributed
in their city's or community's schools;
- They can write letters to the Editor or op-ed pieces urging distribution
of the Pledge;
- They can ask local businesses to finance ads with a full-page copy
of the Pledge in their city or town's newspaper;
- They can identify local leaders, celebrities, or sports figures, and
ask them to speak out to young people about the Pledge. It may be helpful
to bring the list of Endorsing Organizations
that support the pledge.
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