One of my favorite CAS experiences so far is my work as a member of my school’s Amnesty International Club. This club promotes and supports human rights within our school and our city. Amnesty Club has held several events that help bring awareness to and provide an opportunity to fight against human rights violations. 

The primary example of this was the Write 4 Rights event. We provided three different cases of human rights violations. We encouraged students, teachers, and other visitors to write a letter of support for the targets of these violations or to sign their name to a letter of protest that would be sent to a governmental body close to or involved in one of the three cases to try to get them to deal with the human rights violations in each case. Though I forget the actual number, we ended up having filled out each of the letters, both of support and protest, that was given to us by Amnesty International for this event. Our support for these cases will hopefully help resolve the human rights violations in each.

Beyond this, Amnesty Club also held a field trip for volunteer work, where we partnered with Bangkok Community Help. We went to one of their buildings to package food that would later be distributed to needy people, primarily the homeless. The packaged food included rice and soup, and they were placed in small styrofoam boxes that were then transferred into large plastic containers. I estimated that around 100 styrofoam boxes fit into one plastic container, and we filled three of them before distributing them at stations set up by Bangkok Community Help near the Democracy Monument. Each person had to line up to receive the food. We gave out two to three styrofoam boxes to each person who arrived, depending on our station. 

This field trip was highly satisfying to me. Not only did I do something active with my hands, but I also did work that directly benefited my community. It left me feeling accomplished and that my actions helped out the community in a way that really mattered.