Every year, the Red Cross youth division comes up with a campaign to spread awareness about International Humanitarian Law (IHL), or the law of armed conflict. These laws mainly focus on preventing violence throughout the world and protecting those involved that are often overlooked, such as first aid workers or bystanders. Each year, the campaign focuses on a different topic to help protect these people and spread awareness of what they do, with this year’s topic being “Journalists in Armed Conflict.” Various Lambert students have decided to take action and have formed a group specifically designed to join the movement until the campaign ends at the end of the school year.
The Lambert IHL club has meetings and leadership opportunities like other Lambert clubs, but its goals are more focused on other areas of the community instead of being limited to just the school. There are many branches of the Red Cross campaign, but the Lambert IHL club specifically works with the youth division to make the campaign easily accessible for its members. Freshman Allie Childress highlights the impact of young students joining the campaign.
“Youth has so much impact on general media, because they drive media and what’s created and put out,” she said. “So being able to spread the word throughout the youth means that word can be spread throughout different age groups because of their influence.”
Throughout the school year, the Lambert IHL club has made strides to make sure each of its members are well-versed in humanitarian law. They do so by having discussions with college professors, historical movie nights and interactive sessions with experts. Each member must know exactly what they are representing before they can spread the word, which they do through posters hung up around the school and talking with other students. The club does a lot to make students at Lambert well aware of what is going on in this field, and they are hoping to expand and spread more information further outside the school.
This club also understands the stakes of today’s world, and how journalists are involved in modern conflicts. It makes sure its students are well aware of political situations and knowledgeable enough to be able to defend the world’s journalists. They know that they need to be protected now more than ever as tensions between countries grow higher. Journalists often get caught in the crossfire while on the job, and hopefully with these students and their help, fewer innocent people are affected.
Each person in the IHL club at Lambert has a different reason for why they joined. Some students have connections with the campaigns, and want to make a difference for themselves or someone else. Others may want to be in the know of what’s going on across the world, and joining this club can help them be aware and know exactly how to contribute. No matter the reason, the IHL club accepts all members and appreciates all the help that they can get.
“I’ve always had an interest in what is going on politically around the world,” Childress said. “I’d never really known much about International Humanitarian Law, and so being able to learn more about that really interested me.”
As the school year and the campaign both come to a close, Lambert students in the IHL club can be satisfied with knowing that they worked together to contribute to protecting the world’s journalists. Whether it be through educating the public or learning more about the subject, each student contributed in their own way and let themselves be the representatives of Lambert for the Red Cross Youth Division.
