All of us are facing something many of us have never experienced before a pandemic which is forcing us to find new ways to interact with other people and continue to enjoy our college experience. So with that being said I want to help put you on to some of my favorite organizations on campus as well as give you some tips and tricks to help you join a new organization in this weird time. I will be highlighting three organizations I personally have interviewed, seen having multiple events during the pandemic, or simply enjoy. I will also list a couple of organizations and let you know how to become a member and more involved with campus life even though we are not on campus this semester.
This week I decided to interview two organizations that have continued to be active during this pandemic Women of Color Creatives and S.M.O.O.T.H Each of these organizations is fascinating in their own way so I asked each organization 5 questions and here were their responses.
The Five questions I asked each organization were
- What is your organization and what do you all represent?
- What has been hardest about creating events during Covid-19?
- Please tell me about some of the events that you guys have had since the pandemic started.
- What is something unique about your organization?
- How would someone become a member if interested?
Taylor who is the president and founder of Women of Color Creatives stated the following;
Women of Color Creatives is a Temple organization that focuses on the empowerment of women of color and aims to build connections for women of color that have artistic passions or creative goals. The hardest part about creating events right now is attendance, since Covid we’ve done one main event and had a few discussions as the semester picked up our attendance definitely dropped and caused us to strategically plan out what type of discussions we should focus on. Since the pandemic we’ve had a “Her Space” event dedicated to Black women, social justice, womanhood, which had an amazing turn out of attendance. We are currently in the process of doing another event for November 5 that focuses on marketing as a creative during COVID-19. I think something unique about WOCC is that we give every woman a platform to share their truth through their art, the art world is predominantly white as well as predominantly male despite popular belief and I think we are able to inspire each other as creatives to be the representation we want to see!
If you are interested in joining WOCC they offer a google doc link in their instagram bio you can find them on instagram @womenofcolorcreatives you then can click to join and get updates on the org.
For our second Organization I was able to speak to Mr.Smooth himself Jamar Root.
Smooth’s mission is to educate, develop, organize, and empower young males and marginalized youth of color to improve their graduation and retention rates in educational institutions. To create sustainable social change, we work to establish a school of thought and transnational network of young males that use ethics, collective action, and social entrepreneurship as tools. The hardest part of Covid-19 has been not being able to interact with everyone as we usually do. At SMOOTH we are all about our community and we just aren’t able to be as involved as usual. But we are still doing our best. Since the pandemic started we have been a part of a couple community service events such as Hydrate Philly and a Back to School Drive. In terms of our own events we have hosted meetings such as “Zoom University”. That meeting was discussion based and allowed us to help each other in terms of navigating this new normal. In my opinion what makes SMOOTH special is the brotherhood. When you bring together a diverse group of men that all are striving to be their best selves, special things happen. Personally for me, this brotherhood has helped me strive to greater than I could have ever imagined.
If you are interested in joining smooth you should try to attend as many of their events as possible and then apply once applications open up again. You can also find them on instagram @smoothtemple
Both of these organizations are very special in their own way and you should definitely check them out as well though I would like to leave a list of some honorable mention organizations
- Marathon; @marathon.tu newer organization that focuses on entrepreneurial lifestyle, mentorship, finding your passion, and helping you create your own business. Motto is “We pledge allegiance to the Hu$$le”
- We Network Temple; @wenetworktemple focuses on women’s entrepreneurship networking, business, workshops, and showcasing working women.
- Ramajay.tu; @ramajay.tu Temple’s own west indian dance team ramajay focuses on dance workshops, performances, and sharing west indian cultures.
- A moment of Magic; @amomentofmagictempleu This organization provides creative programming to children with medical vulnerabilities in the philadelphia area and beyond, they also dress up as disney princesses and go see children in the hospital (:
- Campus Curlz: @campuscurlz.templeu Organization goals are to enhance, educate, and uplift the PHL community through natural hair and service. They have interest meetings, talk about natural curly hair.
- D2D; @d2ddance is a dance company at Temple university that strives to spread the love of arts through dance, workshops, and performances.
- Pretty Girls Sweat; @prettygirlssweattemple a sisterhood empowering college girls through fitness.
- Refine. Magazine; @refine.magazine a organization at Temple that runs the refine magazine on the Temple’s campus it is run by women and for women
- Temple Queer People of Color; @temple_qpoc Empowering queer students of color and their allies in perpetuating a safe & accepting environment at Temple university.
- CommClubTu; @commclubtu A study club focusing on communications
If you enjoyed this article please let me know I would love to hear from you and if you guys would like me to do more articles like this! But overall make sure even though we are in the middle of a pandemic do not be scared to put yourself out there and join organizations that interest you, go to a couple of zoom meetings and you may find some new really interesting people and create new friendships in this hard time.