Spring Break
W brings awareness to women's poverty, homelessness in community
By: Calli Turner
Issue date: 3/3/09 Section: News
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"I noticed a lack of women's organizations in comparison with the amount of men's organizations, and combine that with the need of women's poverty in the world and even in America," said Snyder, a senior anthropology major.
When researching the area, Snyder came across CARE, a philanthropic agency that aids in cases of women's poverty.
"I combined both of those things and created W," she said.
Snyder said the purpose of W is to empower women to go out, make a change and become leaders.
"We believe that women are often hit harder by poverty and as such, it takes unifying women to work together to get those women out of poverty," Snyder said.
The previous two years, for a few days a time, the members of W demonstrated a homeless community on campus that provided a first-hand glimpse into the reality of women's poverty.
"Our members lived in Rudder Plaza for 60 hours and we only subsisted on what was given to us, so we only came with the clothes on our backs and our textbooks and our notebooks," said Executive Chairwoman of Membership Development Hayley Wren, a sophomore special education major.
"We wore the same clothes for three days, and we only ate what was donated to us," Wren said. "Our entire purpose of having a poverty demonstration on campus was to make poverty personal to the A&M family and to show that it can be anyone."
Poverty or homelessness, Wren said, could affect your affect your sister, friend, roommate or that girl in your biology class.
Snyder said the group took the demonstration and formed a larger event.
"We took that and expanded it into what we call poverty simulation," she said. "We're going to invite the campus out to basically simulate a homeless community with us. We're going to do it very tastefully and, in a sense, educationally."
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