Matthew Pelli, Reporter
@MPelliCourant
Imagine living in a world where you don’t have a pen to write something down. When you walk into a medical clinic, it is not only expected, but essential for them to have the materials needed to write down your condition. When you go to school, supplies such as pens are necessary to complete your work. Yet in some places, these tasks can’t be completed
because pens are not an available resource. The Human Rights Club at New Canaan High School understands how valuable a pen can be, and is raising awareness for those places that are deprived of them.
The Human Rights Club, led by seniors Fatima Sonday and Sydney Britt, is a club focused on supporting and helping people’s human rights. According to Mr. Darken, one of the clubs co-supervisors along with Ms. Cullen, “The club is focused on a broad mission, we’re just interested in raising awareness/money for anything that the club see as an important human rights topic.”
For the past couple of weeks, the Human Rights Club has been holding a pen drive in New Canaan High School. The pens that are collected are going to isolated medical clinics that don’t have the materials to write down a patient’s medical history, diagnosis, or prescription. The Human Rights Club understand that in a developed society, pens are usually taken for granted. “That is sort of routine here in the U.S. When you go to a doctor, they need supplies to be able to do their job,” Mr. Darken said. Usually, when you go to a clinic, they have the materials needed for medical practice. However, in some low income places, these supplies are unavailable.
The Human Rights Club was inspired to initiate the pen drive from a conference held in New York last spring. The club heard a representative from the AIFA foundation speak about human rights issues. Ms. Cullen said,“The representative told all the students at the conference that even something as simple as doing a pen drive in your school would be so helpful and make such a huge difference.”
Not only are these pens going to medical facilities that need them, but they are also being contributed to hurricane victims in Texas, Puerto Rico, and Florida through the AIFA foundation. This will help people recover quicker from the effects of the disasters. Mr. Darken said, “Kids have been out of school for a long time. They can’t necessarily get to the store conveniently, where they have money to spend on school supplies. So AIFA is using pens, papers, notebooks to send to these hard hit areas to give kids school supplies.”
Although pens are not something that many tend to appreciate, they could really save lives. A pen donated to the Human Rights Club’s drive could save a patient from being fed a medicine that they are allergic to, or could put a child back in school. Be sure to find one of the donation sites around New Canaan High School, because every pen counts.
