Making a Difference With D4D

Participants learning at the conference.

Although many students want to spend their Friday’s doing basically nothing, some hard working students chose to spend this past Friday learning how to raise their voices.

Put on with the help of CCAR, Pace brought Debating for Democracy (D4D) On the Road, a part of Project Pericles’ non-profit organization, to the Gottesman Room on November 4th. The event, called the “Make Your Voice Heard Conference”, was put on to teach students how to advocate and raise their voice about issues that they care about. Students from the Pace New York City campus mingled with Pleasantville students from around 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. that day with two small breaks in between, with breakfast, lunch, and snacks provided for everyone.

Starting off the day, participants wrote down issues they cared about on little cards, and went around to people they didn’t know to explain and learn about each other's issues. For example, many wrote down things like “women’s rights”, “disability services”, “environmental reform”, along with many other things. Later on they learned how to tell “thematic” rather than “episodic” stories to make them more effective. Next, they learned how to frame their message so that the public wouldn’t misinterpret it, and get people to understand why it matters. Concluding the day, participants partnered up and learned how to explain problems in a sequential order and shared how they thought they could use that going forward.

“There was a lot that I learned about making your voice heard. I learned that it's better to put yourself out there rather than hold everything in because it can actually make a difference.” said one freshman participant.

The days workshops were put on by Anna Marie Trester, the Trainer and Learning Unit Manager for the Framework Institute. The services she and the program provided are also put on all across the country at schools like Elon University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Swarthmore College, and many others.