No Lost Generation is organizing a Valentine’s Day cookie delivery service for students Tuesday. Students can register for the cookies by accessing the club’s Google form.
“It’s a fun and easy fundraiser,” said Katie Morris, ’18, the club’s president, “and everyone loves cookies and treats.”
The cookie sales will be allocated to Bethany Christian Services, which No Lost Generation has worked with several times in the past. The center, located in Allentown, has often assisted families from Burma, though recently a Syrian family was housed there as well.
No Lost Generation is an on-campus organization that most recently coordinated a solidarity rally Jan. 31. The rally drew over 300 students from different organizations across campus in light of President Donald Trump’s executive order banning the travel of people from seven nations.
“There were more students there than were anticipated, and it was great,” Morris said. “Especially because the rally was organized in only a few days.”
No Lost Generation’s pillars focus on education for children and the refugee situation worldwide. The group has a non-discriminatory policy, meaning no country’s refugees are given preference over another. The organization seeks to educate people and raise awareness about the situations refugees find themselves in.
No Lost Generation focuses its efforts on helping families who have escaped degradation in their home countries for a chance at a better life in the U.S. With that move often comes a state of flux. Morris said many refugees are left living a half life in their new place of residence. She said they are left to either fend for themselves or survive on a small amount of money offered them by the local economy.
First-generation refugee children normally suffer the most because many refugees are forced to take low-income jobs in poorer neighborhoods in an effort to survive and make a living in their new homes. The SOS Children’s Village, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping refugee children, wants to make the public aware of the abuse and exploitation refugee children face.
As an example of this exploitation, refugee children’s education becomes compromised by the over-crowding and under-staffing of public schools. Refugees are forced to live in these school districts because they are often the only places they have been offered jobs.
According to the Pew Research Center, fewer than 10 percent of foreigners earn a comfortable per capita income of over $55,000 within their first ten years in the country. In fact, refugees in metropolitan neighborhoods have exceedingly dropped their income by 60 percent in 2000 and 48 percent in 2014.
No Lost Generation is dedicated to provoking conversations about the refugee experience.
In the past, No Lost Generation has hosted Zach Ingrasci for a film screening and conversation of his film, “Salam Neighbor.” Rebecca Ely, a current executive board member, said the film screening was one of her favorite initiatives with the group.
“It allowed us, as an organization, to draw a large crowd and stimulate meaningful conversation on such an important issue,” Ely said.
Upcoming events include a speaker from the Karam Foundation on March 21. Morris and faculty adviser Sarah Stanlick will also be on a panel with a community partner for the Mellon Digital Humanities Initiative.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of Ingasci’s film and the organization for Syrian refugees. The film is titled “Salam Neighbor,” not “Salaam Neighbour.” The organization is called the Karam Foundation, not the Kamran Foundation.
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