“But what can we do? The government determines how the country runs. Even if we try to make a difference, we can’t, because they determine everything. So what can we do?”This was my very first question and challenge as the social justice minister. I was absolutely stumped. I recall blubbering something insignificant and feeling pretty silly and incompetent after that.
The point of my story is this: As Social Justice Coordinator, you tend to deal with incredibly difficult questions about the world. The mistake I made then was to assume that I needed to know the answers to all the difficult questions about the world…and of course you don’t.
Being Social Justice Coordinator, one will have to be in charge of updating the Justice & Peace noticeboard in the Chaplaincy, running a few social justice sessions in the semester, keeping COSDU in touch with the happenings of the world and to arrange some outreach work.
Sounds a lot, but believe me, it isn’t too hard because if you are truly passionate about social justice issues, you will feel that you need to do even more!
So…Who should run for this post?
Well, naturally it should be someone who has great passion for social justice issues. And I truly mean passionate because you should be prepared to spend evenings watching the news (only SBS World News Australia, of course!), reading a lot (newspapers are not enough), engaging in volunteer work with COSDU, attending forums and perhaps even the occasional protest (peaceful ones, of course) in the city!
Being Social Justice Coordinator truly requires one to move out of one’s comfort zone, to find out so much more about the issues within societies and to find an interesting way of relaying all that information to COSDU without being overbearing.
I’ve made the Social Justice post sound incredibly difficult and almost impossible. Task wise, it actually isn’t difficult at all. It only becomes difficult when one is challenged to not give up on a world that has become so unjust and broken.
Our God is very much alive in our world today. Only, we do not always recognize Him because He appears very fragile, very broken. And so, we give up. We question His existence. We start thinking that we are helpless.
But God is not lost in our unjust world. Instead, we have lost Him in our brokenness.
Being a Social Justice Coordinator means that we not only stand for peace and justice but that we are truly present, ready to run the race as a peacemaker.
Will you be a peacemaker?
Celine
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