By Renee Larr
During the week of Sept. 21-25, Hamilton Southeastern Students were asked to take the IVow pledge. The IVow movement was created by a Fishers family in conjunction with the Do Something Club created at HSE last year.
“The Do Something HSE Club was started by my daughter, Nailah Owens-Johnson. Last year, they did the pledge in the middle of the year. The principal adopted the pledge, but wanted to do it in the fall so it could be fresh when school started, and to take it on through the school year,” said Nailah’s mom, Tish Johnson.
IVow was created to help take Do Something’s message out into the community. IVow is a movement that promotes respect of one another and discourages discrimination of all kinds. The pledge states ‘I pledge to show respect to all and not discriminate (treat unfairly) on the basis of race, color, national origin/ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, religion, age, weight/appearance, gender or academic performance. This VOW is a lifetime commitment to promote respect and discourage discrimination.’
Do Something and IVow presented their cause to students at HSE during lunch each day last week asking students to take the pledge, and share it via social media. They also encouraged people to use the hashtag #onlyoneyou and to share what makes them unique.
“The members of the club encouraged people who take the pledge to share so it can be pushed outside of the walls of HSE so that other people can make that commitment to promote respect and in turn help discourage discrimination,” said Johnson.
While it’s hard to quantify, over 500 students took the pledge last week, and www.ivowmovement.com had over 900 hits on the site. Students who took the pledge signed poster boards throughout the week. For more information, or to take the pledge yourself, visit ivowmovement.com.
