I want to start an advocacy club- how?

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Shinzy
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13 Sep 2016, 4:05 am

The community college I go to is really small, this is a rural place. I have talked to the head of special populations because apparently there was a club like this a few years ago but everyone maintaining it graduated so it was disbanded.

I was hoping to have this as a sort of support group for students with disabilities on campus, and also to advocate for education and accessibility changes on campus (for one instance, there is an issue with stairs and elevators in one building that I've been trying by myself to get fixed for more than a year).

The main problem I'm facing is how small the school is. According to the advisors, there are only around 10 students in all, including myself, that have requested accommodations this semester. I didn't expect the number to be very high but this made me feel really small and insignificant. And of course there's absolutely no guarantee that anyone in that group would want to be part of this club in the first place.

How would someone go about creating a club like this with so few people on campus?



yelekam
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15 Sep 2016, 8:44 pm

I would suggest familiarizing yourself with the requirements and procedures for establishing a club.
In regards to membership: indeed there's a chance that these people might not be interested, but there is also a change of people being interested. Attempting to talk to these people is important to finding out.
Emphasizing potential benefits, while presenting it as not too demanding on the time and energy of potential members, tends to a good way to try to recruit members for clubs in general. Beyond these main people there could be other people to potentially recruit. There may well be students with conditions who are not signed up for accommodations. Also there may be students who for some reason are sympathetic toward students with disabilities. Or people who may get recruited later along the line from those initially recruited. These may end up broadening the pool for potential members.
Also, you could try to find out about and contact some of the students who were part of the previous group. Perhaps some of them might be willing to offer advice.



AardvarkGoodSwimmer
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19 Sep 2016, 8:33 pm

All good suggestions. I'd recommend trying to run multi-track if possible

Perhaps also try talking with current groups which might be open minded to this as a project.

And honest to gosh with activism, like the issue with the one building and its stairs and elevators, the coin of the realm for effective activism seems to be slightly understating your case. No matter how serious, whether it's war and peace, whether it's human trafficking, if you overstate your case by one tenth of one percent, people seem to kick at the whole thing. It's almost like it is a cognitive / emotional processing flaw on the part of us human beings.