 "Photo: Courtesy of Kate Jaffe")
Kate Jaffe and Sydney Daigle traveled the world to work with disadvantaged children, tutored struggling children in Columbia and worked with mentally disabled people.
Now, they’re working as co-presidents of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance to help women find equality at USC. It’s almost a full-time job for the two students, who hope to carry their community service experiences into the rest of their lives.
“We coordinate different feminists events like film festivals, bake sales, and we work with TellThem! S.C., which is an organization in Columbia to help prevent teen pregnancy here,” said Jaffe, a fourth-year psychology student. “We’re also starting a blog called Sweet Tea and Equality. We’re all about women being equal to everyone else.”
The two students say promoting positive health is one of the organization’s biggest goals.
“We always promote women’s health on campus, we also support local women’s groups and charities,” Daigle said. “We also try to provide community for young women who are socially minded who want to create some positive things.”
Their experiences overseas gave a lot of inspiration for their service, both students said. Jaffe went to India, where she worked with victims of child labor. Daigle spent a semester in Africa offering help and assistance to those in need.
“We got to visit a local village where a lot of children had been involved in child labor and they took them out and started them in school in order to account for lost wages and empower the women to start their own businesses,” Jaffe said. “They were really nice to me. All the kids were so cute. It was really eye-opening and fun.”
When she’s not working with the FMLA, Daigle tutors at Columbia’s Waverly Center, an organization for struggling students run by students at USC.
“We’re there from 4 to 6 p.m. We work with them on their homework,” Diagle said. “They’re like our babies.”
Jaffe holds three jobs, and she’s also a volunteer for sexual violence victims, a tutor at Irmo Middle School and a member of Tri Delta Sorority along with being involved with almost a dozen other groups.
Jaffe said right now she is applying to Peace Corp and she has an interview in two weeks. She hopes to one day be an ambassador for the U.S. Daigle wants to work with AmeriCorp Vista before attaining a doctorate in anthropology.
Sarah Baugher, a second-year HRTM student and a member of the organization, said the two aren’t necessarily well-known on campus, but they’re always working.
“They are a dynamic duo,” Baugher said. “They’re great representation of the common day feminist.”
12 comments
Wow syndey do positive "things"? Who would have thought!
SHE'S AMAZING!