IJM Day And What I Learned About Organizing
October 2013
Emily Yount is the leader of the IJM student chapter at Vanderbilt University. Her group and their neighboring chapters at Belmont and Lipscomb Universities were instrumental in orchestrating the first ever “IJM Day,” that took place on October 1, 2013, in Nashville, TN. They also collected over 700 signed postcards, addressed to Senator Corker, asking him to support the Human Trafficking Prioritization Act. Emily is majoring in social work and will graduate in 2014.
About a year ago, most of Vanderbilt University had never heard of International Justice Mission. As I write this, I am sitting in the exact same campus coffee shop where, last fall, four students and I first began to talk about bringing a chapter to our campus. Even once it had been formed, we never dreamed that, less than a year later, we would be able to participate in anything like what happened this past October 1, in Nashville.
Rising to the Challenge
My fellow chapter leaders and I were busy planning our events for the semester when all of us got an email from Seth Wispelwey, an IJM field organizer, asking if we would be interested in meeting with him about something exciting happening in Nashville.
We met Seth at a popular coffee shop in Nashville, having no idea what to expect. He soon got to the point and explained that our city was in the process of declaring October 1, 2013 to be “IJM Day.” This was certainly exciting news, but we were slightly overwhelmed when we realized he was asking us, along with IJM student chapters at Belmont and Lipscomb, to take on a great deal of the promotion for the event.
At the end of our meeting with Seth, we set a time to get together with the leaders of the Belmont and Lipscomb chapters. It was clear that everyone entered the meeting time apprehensively, unsure of what was expected of us or what we could actually accomplish. Some of the excitement from the news had worn off, and we began to realize the short time span we had to promote the event. But as the dialogue began, we saw how much more effective we were together than apart. Even the brainstorming stage of the planning process worked better with our combined efforts than it ever had in our chapter alone.
Within the span of an hour, leaders from the three chapters came up with creative ideas for promotion and advertising for this event. Within the span of a week, we had filmed the majority of a promotional video that featured students from all three campuses. Within the span of three weeks, hundreds of people had heard about the event and dozens had confirmed their attendance. Working with Belmont and Lipscomb turned out to be a great lesson in collaboration and organizing. We were blown away. Never had anything happened that quickly on such a large scale for our chapter.
An Incredible Experience, TBC
The event itself was an incredible experience. Everyone involved was so humbled to be a part of something so historic. But beyond that, the day truly was a springboard to the rest of the movement that has continued this semester. It was amazing to hear that both IJM and the city of Nashville were fully supportive of what we, a small group of college students, were doing. The Nashville chapters are committed to continuing the partnership that began in that coffee shop, and we have already seen our impact on the community expand because of this collaboration.
