This year Northwestern’s Justice Week is taking place Oct. 3-7.
“Justice Week is born out of a desire to serve God by serving his people,” said junior Jenni Kahanic. “As college students, one of the best ways to do this is to raise awareness and increase our own capacity to understand different realities.”
Kahanic leads the campus group Justice Matters. In the past Justice Matters has sponsored Justice Week alone; however, this year many campus organizations are getting involved.
“What we are doing this year is having all the service and compassion ministries on campus coordinate the week together,” Kahanic said. “Each group is taking a day to focus on issues related to their ministry or area of focus.”
Justice Week will begin with the CROP walk. Participants will meet in the DeWitt Theatre Arts Center at 10:45 a.m. Sunday.
Hunger Homeless will set up a box city beginning at 7 p.m. Monday. All week students will have the opportunity to sleep in a community of cardboard boxes to simulate what it would feel like to be homeless. For sophomore Megan Rustad, the homeless simulation is one of the highlights of Justice Week.
“Sleeping outside last year was very eye-opening,” Rustad said. “I hadn’t experienced that kind of restlessness in my sleep and chills all the way through my bones before the simulation.”
Each morning at 8:30 a.m. a prayer service centered on the day’s topic will be held at the tent in the middle of Box City, and fireside fellowship will be held every evening at 10 p.m.
Prison Ministry will put on an all-campus D-group focused on injustices within the prison system at 10 p.m. Tuesday in Christ Chapel.
Enlaces en Cristo will host a dinner conversation focused on drug trafficking in the private dining room at 6 p.m., and “immigration” will be the topic for Campus Conversation which will be held in the Red Room of the Franken Center at 10 p.m.
“Last year I really liked the campus discussions,” Rustad said. “It was cool hearing the different opinions from students on campus and getting conversations going on subjects not always talked about here.”
Justice Matters will show a short video on Christianity and justice in America, followed by discussion led by a panel of professors at 7 p.m. Thursday in RSC room 154.
“We will be sending out e-mails and putting up fliers alerting students about the events and topics for each day,” Kahanic said. “Together, we really just want other students to witness that passion and to share in it.”