By Alde Nguyen
Staff Writer
In the midst of arising social injustice and human inequality occurring around the world, two Costa sophomores face these conflicts by creating the Human Equality Club.
Sophomores Isabella Papadimitriou and Allie Smythe recently created the Human Equality Club, which is an association for Costa students meant to address the issue of inequality and bring people of different personal beliefs, sexuality, and religion together. The club meets every other Wednesday in Mr. Piper’s room, number 203.
“I believe that people of all gender and identification should be treated with the same equality and respect as any other person, even if they have different characteristics,” Papadimitriou said. “I’m very passionate towards the goal of accomplishing this at Costa because it will benefit our social environment.”
The club mainly hopes to inform and teach the students and teachers of Costa about issues concerning inequality such as sexism, racism, hate against sexuality, and abhorrence of different religions, Papadimitriou says. The club’s ambition is to help the young minds of Costa recognize the importance of these conflicts.
“We motivate the students that join the Human Equality Club to tell their peers of the issues that we discuss in our club,” Papadimitriou said. “We hope for them to be more open minded and remove any ignorance that they or their peers had towards these topics.”
The inspiration for Smythe and Papadimitriou to create the club is tied to personal roots, says Smythe. Allie was inspired by her older sister, Katie Smythe, who is currently taking action to reach gender equality for women, but Allie hopes to create equality for all. As for Isabella, she created the club due to her morals that all people disregarding their characteristics shall be treated the same.
“My sister has been working hard to expand the rights of women by participating in movements with a purpose to desexualize the female body, so I thought starting a club would be a good place for me to start something that would impact the world in a profound way,” Smythe said, “I chose to create this club because spreading awareness for equality of all kinds of people is an important topic to undertake.”
The first meeting of the Human Equality Club took place on Wednesday, October 19th. The club focuses on different issues every other meeting and approaches them by watching short films and documentaries, discussing topics, having public speakers such as author Zayna De Gaia and playing games that relate to the issues at hand.
The official Facebook of Zayna De Gaia, one of the club’s public speakers
“By having these activities, I believe we’ll bring Costa kids together and make them more comfortable with other members of the club by getting to know each other and sharing similar interests,” Smythe said. “We’re trying to have fun and create a welcoming environment for all, while educating people at the same time.”
The Human Equality Club has many future plans for this upcoming school year as well as high expectations for their first year of establishment. These include planning fundraisers in order to support equality movements and participating in nonviolent protests. The club is also contemplating holding a fashion show with the Costa Fashion Club in order to express human diversity by including people of all culture and traits, Smythe says.
“My goal is for this club is to influence many Costa students about our beliefs revolving around equality and to spread our morals around the school,” sophmore Yusuf Cader, treasurer of the club, said. “My hopes are that this club will do good for future Costa students and become prominent within the school.”
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