Ohio Northern University will host its ninth annual “Unite for Awareness Week,” a student-driven initiative to bring attention to issues of discrimination, from Sunday, March 23, to Friday, March 28.
All Unite for Awareness Week events are free.
On Sunday, March 23, Open Doors will have a booth set up in the ONU Field House to increase awareness of transphobia.
On Tuesday, March 25, at 11 a.m., the Cultural Conversation Hour in the Heterick Library will focus on “Hungry in the USA: A look at socioeconomic status and the plight of food insecurity in the U.S. and local communities.” The guest speaker will be Keith Preston, president and founder of the Dream Center of Ohio in Kenton, Ohio. At 5 p.m., the Muslim Student Association will hold an informational session at Affinity Commons.
The ONU Black Law Student Association will sponsor a showing of the film “Murder on a Sunday Morning” in the Celebrezze Moot Court Room on Wednesday, March 26. The Oscar-winning documentary details a murder trial in which a 15-year-old African-American is wrongly accused of a 2000 murder in Jacksonville, Fla., due to racial profiling. A brief discussion will be held at the film’s conclusion.
At 6 p.m. on Thursday, March 27, the Office of Multicultural Development, International Student Services, and the Black Student Union will host a lecture, “Genocide and Its Aftermath: The Story of a Real Survivor of the Hotel Rwanda,” by Edouard Kayihura. Kayihura is a survivor of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, during which he spent 100 days as a refugee in the Hotel des Mille Collines aka “Hotel Rwanda.”
The Unite for Awareness activities close with the annual ONU multicultural fair in the McIntosh Activities Center on Friday, March 28, at 5 p.m. The Multicultural Fair is an opportunity for members of ONU’s diverse international student population to showcase their home countries with traditional clothing, cultural decorations and crafts, ethnic food samplings, and musical arts. Some of the countries to be featured include Brazil, China, Afghanistan, Taiwan, Denmark, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia. In addition to the display booths and talent show, the night will include the debut of an international flag installation in ONU’s student center, a culturally themed photo booth, a competitive talent show and recognition of international student scholarship winners.
