At Saint Mary's we talk, a lot. We are constantly in conversation about topics pertaining to social activism, diversity, inclusion, and equality. As a community we have done an excellent job at starting the dialogue about important issues. Though this is extremely important for change, many times these discussions are not followed through with real actions to create such change. Education and spreading awareness are key components to this work, but as a community it is time to go beyond discussions in Pittman and start, well, impacting. We need to manifest this awareness and education into actions to create change, and we must have clear intentions behind our every action to maximize the overall impact. Our focus today will be getting to the real meaning of social impact and how we all play a role.

Reagan: A key component to becoming an active agent for change is intention. Intentions. There are many cases in which harmful actions are committed by those with the greatest intentions. To prevent unintended harm, it is important to consider not only our intentions but our impact. To do this we must fortify our actions with education and research. Continuing with the social media analogy; re-tweeting or sharing posts where you intend to spread awareness without researching, fact checking, or even reading the article can result in widespread misinformation and lies. I am definitely guilty of posting without reading beyond the headline, but spreading false information causes way more harm than good, no matter your intent. On a broader scale, attending short-term mission trips to foreign countries without proper education and awareness surrounding the effects of tourism, can result in significant economic and cultural impact on the area being visited. There are benefits of short-term missionary trips. Research conducted by Baylor University showed students surveyed immediately after a short trip to Honduras received a "high" from the trip and were motivated to do more service in their own community. The also cited benefits from the exposure to another culture. I can attest to this. In 7th grade, my six-day mission trip to El Salvador opened my eyes to poverty and made me want to commit to service in my own community. However, as I've grown and learned, I often reflect on this trip. Did you do research about the community and your impact? Did you ask the community what it needed? How much of your actions were self-serving? Unfortunately, despite best intentions of missionaries, like myself, the ones who benefit the most from missionaries' trips are missionaries, not those who live in the countries. Some of the negative outcomes of short-term mission trips are well explained by the intentional traveler's organization. Their study explained trips can cause places that were once economically self-sustainable to become reliant on the tourism industry and products of westernization. A quote from the ITO study reads, "Despite our good intentions, we're actually promoting dependence rather than empowerment, perpetuating an unhealthy dynamic where the benevolent, rich foreigner is savior and the materially poor person is helpless. Historically painting and pictures have portrayed the savior image of missionaries." In modern times, the pictures, both private and published, portraying mission trips can portray the trope of "the western savior" as well. I have come to realize, going to another country with the intention of "saving" the "poor" can be both disempowering and belittling to the people living there. So, before deciding to attend a certain mission trip or posting your mission trip pictures of you holding random brown children, one must consider not only their intentions, but their impact. Will posting these pictures to spread awareness perpetuate the damaging trope of "the rich western foreigner?" Will attending this mission trip benefit those in the country or me more? These two scenarios, and our experiences with both, show the importance of aligning your intentions with the real impact of your actions to make the most of your service.

Ginsy: Although mission trips and those who attend have good intention, they are not always the best way to create social impact in another community. Social activism is about bringing change for good to help improve the greater community and the world. It is not about posting pictures on Instagram of ourselves being "good people." Social activism comes hand-in-hand with sacrifice. There are many sacrifices we make with this work, our time, our money, our resources, and our energy. First off, you can begin creating change in your local community. Researching the problems and listening the first-hand accounts of people experiencing these problems will allow for your actions to have the most impact. A part of the sacrifice of being agents for social change is foregoing self-glorification and social currency that are often attached to service to effectively contribute to the greater cause. For example, Tarana Burke, the creator of the #metoo social movement is often not credited for her role in creating the movement. She believes that the effectiveness of the movement is worth sacrificing being the face of the cause by allowing the victims to remain at the forefront. In an interview, Burke responded to questions about her lack of credit by saying, "I think it is selfish for me to try to frame Me Too as something that I own," "it is bigger than me and bigger than Alyssa Milano (the woman who brought the movement to social media). Neither one of us should be centered in the work, this is about survivors."

Reagan: I have spent much time reflecting on my role in the movement and I encourage you all to do the same. I have been guilty of using social justice as social currency, not researching enough, talking too much and not impacting enough. But I am ready to change this, and I hope you all are too. Together as a school we have the power to create real change and improvement in our community and this begins with taking action. The open discussion we take part in is vital to social impact, but it is time to be the change we wish to see in the world. We need to stop just talking about issue and start taking action. However, it is important to remember, intentions are just as important as the action, it is critical that our intention and impact create only positive change. Social activism and impact require sacrifice. Bryan Stevenson, an American lawyer and social justice activist said it best, "justice only prevails when people do the uncomfortable and inconvenient." As a community, Saint Mary's has worked to improve the social impact of our community through conversation about topics of diversity, inclusivity, and equity; but it is time to go beyond. See this speech as a call to action to go past talking and make a real impact on your community with your actions. Saint Mary's journey to improvement and change can only be achieved when we collectively take action, make sacrifices, and use our privileges to be agents for change.