A Pledge of Civility Towards a Pandemic-Free Future

By Chhavi Mehra (Communications and Media, ‘20)

Community, connectivity and humanity are what prompted two Alfie Scholars at Seattle University to kickstart The COVID-19 Civility Pledge Campaign. Although this has been in the works since September 2020, thanks to the SGSU junior class representative, Abem Fekade-Tessema (Business Economics ‘22), SGSU & Clubs will launch the first COVID-19 Civility Pledge Drive on April 12-25, 2021.

Alfie Scholars (L-R) Chelsea Arnold (Forensic and Clinical Psychology ‘22), Afrikaan Sahra (Computer Science ‘22) and Abem Fekade-Tessema (Business Economics ‘22)

On one particular weekend last summer, Alfie Scholar Afrikaan Sahra (Computer Science ‘22) attended a gathering of Somalian, South Asian and East African refugee communities in South Seattle where he witnessed how people didn’t see COVID-19 as a very serious and dangerous issue. “[B]ecause people were off from work, they thought this was a time to mingle,” said Sahra.  

Sahra shared his frustration with the Alfie Scholars Program Founder and Executive Director Paula Lustbader, who then reached out to former Alfie Scholars from the Somali refugee community who worked in healthcare to find if they shared Sahra’s perception that people were not following pandemic safety protocols, and if so, what we could do to help influence them to do so. In that meeting, they learned that both the Somali Health Board and the Imam Dr. Sh Ahmed Nuur were strongly encouraging the community to follow protocols, but many adults were not responding appropriately to that information. Because efforts aimed at influencing the adults were not succeeding, Sahra and Lustbader decided to create the Youth COVID-19 Civility Pledge Campaign and focus on the untapped power of young adults.

The COVID-19 Civility Pledge calls attention to how our actions can impact others and their actions can impact us. The Pledge asks everyone to wear masks in all public spaces, maintain a 6-foot distance in compliance with the nationwide COVID-19 guidelines, be informed about vaccines and practice pandemic-related protocols.

The COVID-19 Civility Pledge Campaign seeks to empower youth to influence everybody to sign the pledge with a simple, interactive button on the Campaign’s website. The Campaign is a project of students in the Alfie Scholars Program, whose mission is to empower and cultivate leaders for civility. The Program provides financial support, enriched academic curriculum, mentorship and professional development opportunities to underrepresented community college transfer students.

 “COVID-19 [is] more than just wearing a mask, but something that connects to civility issue, collectivity issue. The idea that I’m going to protect somebody outside of my family outside of my personal body — it required civility, it required collective mentality,” explained Sahra. “Too many people are suffering, and vulnerable communities are suffering disproportionately because of the systemic inequities that the pandemic has laid bare. We thought who better to carry the seriousness of this mission than the young adults who have the ability to influence their present and future,” Lustbader emphasized, who also points out that helping our communities is good for our mental health.

Alfie Scholar Chelsea Arnold (Forensic and Clinical Psychology ‘22) also echoed a similar sentiment. The focus of the program is helping high-risk communities because “such a huge part of civility is acknowledging that sure we have the means to protect ourselves, to quarantine, to provide ourselves with PPE potentially, but that’s not the case for everybody,” said Arnold. Arnold currently works with Seattle’s homeless population and has come across many Facebook posts about people who don’t have masks or members of the homeless community that have passed away from COVID-19.

Sahra also added how participation in this Campaign is an incentive for young leaders to practice leadership and civility, take care of their communities and represent them.

“Alfie Scholars have been leaders on campus their entire existence. With the COVID-19 Civility Pledge, they are taking their leadership into Seattle communities and creating a more just and humane world. They are living out our Seattle University mission,” said Student Academic Engagement Assistant Provost Joelle Pretty, who was deeply involved in developing the Campaign.

The Campaign seeks to partner with youth-affinity groups to run Pledge Drive Contests. The winners will be the contestants who collect the most pledges with the support of the Campaign. The support that the Campaign offers the groups includes tools and resources like website hosting and tabulating pledges. The first such partner organization to immediately join forces in this awareness campaign is the Student Government of Seattle University (SGSU), according to Fekade-Tessema, who is also an Alfie Scholar.

Fekade-Tessema also shared some of his personal reasons to join the Campaign: “As far as the pandemic, I’m like the point of information for my family.” He has witnessed families of friends who manage COVID-19 protocols based on the actions of the “youth-adults” in the household who serve as “contact points” for important pandemic-related information. “[I]f they are not responsible, their family isn’t either; if they are responsible, their families are as well,” added Fekade-Tessema. This example-setting is what the Campaign encourages.

With the continued support of the Alfie Scholars executive team members, Carol Cochran, Genevieve Geiger and Ricardo Ibarra, the Civility Pledge team hopes to further expand its reach via local community colleges and other youth-affinity groups.

What do the Alfie Scholars hope for The COVID-19 Civility Pledge Campaign?

Fekade-Tessema hopes that “people [will acknowledge and be aware of] how what they do affects others and what others do affect them, not specifically COVID-related but just the bigger picture.”

Arnold hopes that “it’ll be rejuvenating for those of us that are getting really tired as a reminder that it’s not over and we are all in this together.”

Sahra hopes that it “unites us because we’ve been so divided … this whole program with the civility I think, it’s a shared identity, it’s a shared struggle that ... we need to fight against together.”