By Jennifer Winn
As students enter campus, they are greeted with BYU''s motto, 'Enter to Learn...Go Forth to Serve,' and for one student organization, it adopted that motto as its own personal anthem for the upcoming school year.
Students for International Development met Wednesday night in the Harold R. Clark Building to discuss and throw out ideas for the upcoming school year. Students from several different majors gave their input on ideas for service projects, field trips, lectures and any other ways they could get involved in the community.
'These meetings are incredibly valuable because people come from so many different majors, so many different fields, and they''re all bringing something different to the meetings,' said SID co-president, Jay Bostwick, an anthropology major. 'We''re trying to negotiate that and to get an idea of what it means to effectively help someone else.'
SID is a club designed to raise awareness among students on international issues as well as issues in their own backyard. Approximately half the students in SID have lived in developing countries, whether through study abroad, internships or other international programs.
Students discuss poverty, infant and child mortality rates, hunger, Westernization, globalization and any other topics they find important in today''s society. Their focus is on others, rather than themselves.
'We talk about service and expanding your horizons,' said SID vice president, Jess Purdy, a Japanese major from Peach Tree, Ga. 'SID''s more internationally minded, and I think it''s a great mindset to be in. Not just being concerned with yourself, but being concerned with others.'
For the first meeting, SID faculty advisor, Dave Shuler, led students in a discussion based on the Prophet Joseph Smith''s quote, 'By proving contraries, truth is made manifest.'
He used this theme to address common misperceptions about international development.
Shuler encouraged students to put into perspective what they deem valuable in their life, challenging them to look at what others have in the world and compare it to what they feel is important.
'Our first obligation is to change ourselves, and then we turn and serve others,' Shuler said. 'That''s what SID is all about.'
Shuler gave students facts and statistics, and closed the discussion by asking the question, 'What is poverty and what are some solutions?' He said he wanted students to ponder that for the week and come back next week either with answers or more questions.
Poverty is only one issue that SID deals with. Every year SID puts on a hunger banquet, where students and faculty come for dinner and are assigned different social classes according to the world''s economic standards. Some eat soup on the floor, while others dine at a first-class table.
All the food that is provided at the dinner is donated from local restaurants and businesses. This allows all of the proceeds from the banquet to be donated to a program of SID''s choice.
Last year, SID used the $5,000 they raised through the hunger banquet to purchase land in Africa for the building of a school.
Even though the hunger banquet isn''t until next year during Care Week, the club has already started working on it. They are currently inviting students to think about and submit ideas on where they would like the proceeds to go.
'We accept proposals throughout the year and then as a club we decide on which proposals would be the best,' explained SID co-president Nadine Watson, a music major from Boise, Idaho.
For now, SID will continue developing student involvement in the community and encourage them to become more internationally aware. Through their weekly meetings and participation in the community, Purdy said he hopes students will gain a stronger desire to, 'Go Forth and Serve.'