Members of the Austin Human Rights Commission listened intently as two Austin High School students visited with them Tuesday night.

Wednesday, February 28, 2001

Members of the Austin Human Rights Commission listened intently as two Austin High School students visited with them Tuesday night.

Cody Wyant and Lydia Vilt of AHS’ Fusion, the diversity club on campus, spoke to the commission about their efforts to bring greater cultural understanding to the youth of Austin.

"Fusion means emerging and coming together as a unified whole," Wyant said in describing why the group chose that particular name.

AHS has had a diversity club in the past, but Wyant reported that the membership dropped to two to three members last year. At the beginning of the 2000-2001 school year, Wyant brought the proposal for Fusion to AHS Principal Joe Brown. To date, the club has six to 10 members and is seeking more.

Problems with students attending the meetings have arisen because of sports in the afternoon, classes and lunch times during the day and bus schedules in the morning. Despite the scheduling conflicts, Wyant and Vilt say they still find times to meet twice a month.

Currently, "the group is not very diverse," Wyant said.

Wyant and Vilt, along with the other students in the group, have visited students in the foreign exchange program and English-as-a-second language classes in an effort to increase their membership’s diversity.

Members of Fusion have organized a sledding party and a special education prom, and regularly include information about different cultural celebrations in AHS’ daily announcements.

Transportation and warm clothing for those students who did not have either were to be provided at the sledding party, but bad weather forced Fusion to reschedule the event until a future date.

"If people are from different places, they might not know how to play in the snow," Vilt said of why a sledding party was organized. New commission co-chairwoman Liliana Silvestry acknowledged that she is one of the people who does not know what sledding is.

Members of the commission suggested Fusion advertise their group through diverse language announcements, such as Spanish, in the on-campus newspaper.

"Fusion means the same thing in Spanish as in English," Silvestry said, in explaining how a Spanish language advertisement would possibly bring more students into Fusion.

Also during the meeting, members of the commission reviewed a rough draft of a brochure explaining the mission and contact information of the Human Rights Commission. The group looked at a list of different cultural celebrations to add to the city’s calendar as well. The goal is to chose holidays or celebrations that coincide with cultures present in the community, and then bring attention to each day in the media throughout the year.

Both the brochure and the celebration calendar will be discussed at the March 27 meeting, and the Fusion students said they plan to be at that meeting as well, to discuss the progress of their group.