This week, we recognize a club centered on discussion of important issues from around the world. Staff photo by Michael Shames

Michael Shames | Print Editor 

Global Awareness Club was founded last year by Ben Werdegar, Haley Hodge, and Elizabeth Power, who were juniors at the time. On Friday, the club had their first meeting of the year, discussing the Syrian Refugee Crisis.

What is Global Awareness Club?
Global Awareness Club is a club created for students to learn more about current events and issues going on both inside and outside the United States. We were really inspired to create the club because we found that there is a lot of misinformation being spread around at Menlo about various issues, particularly when the ebola outbreak occurred. There were so many rumors about how ebola is coming to the US and how we were all going to die. [Haley, Ben, and I] started discussing this and we decided to have meetings and form a club to inform. That’s how it started. We are all very compassionate people that care about the world. We thought it was a necessary part of Menlo that was really lacking. We wanted to establish a safe place for other students to come in and discuss the global issues that they have been hearing so much about.

How has the club changed from last year to this year?
We were very under-the-radar last year, because we didn’t do a great job of publicizing our club. We had about 12 consistent members last year. But we were excited to find out that we received over 50 sign-ups for our club from the Club Fair. It’s really exciting because we were trying to do a better job of spreading the word around about our club. We are also talking about doing a partnership with Community Circle, where we host information sessions about the topics and Community Circle would go in more depth in discussing them. This way students would get a more holistic perspective on the current events being talked about.

What if I don’t know anything about current events?
It’s totally okay if you don’t know anything about the topics at hand. You don’t need any prior knowledge on our topics to get a lot out of the club. We will show videos and give talks, educating the members of the club on the chosen topic. You are also not required to participate. So you can just come and listen to what other people have to say.

What is the future of your club looking like?
We are currently looking for active students at Menlo that are interested in current events to take a leadership role in the Global Awareness next year and keep the club going. Hopefully, we will get enough interest in the club this year to sustain it for years to come.

When will the club meetings be held?
Global Awareness Club will be held on one Friday each month about different events, depending on what is currently in the news. We try to pick a Friday that works well in the schedule with little conflict. And we will bring tasty foods!