This past week, seven students participated in the Issue Awareness Contest to educate their peers about key social issues from around the world. Their goal was to raise awareness and to provoke reaction and change on campus.

From February 10-16 the students put up posters around campus, set up booths in the cafeteria, and interacted with students. On the 16th each contestant presented a ten minute speech to a panel of three judges about their particular issue in front of an audience in the Northwest Auditorium.

Subjects included awareness of malaria, suicide prevention, church persecution, sexual assault of women, the dangers of theistic evolution, teen suicide and child soldiers in Uganda. Marlae Vermeer, who received the third place $50 cash prize, presented on the Lord’s Resistance Army in northern Uganda. Second place went to Angela McCormick , winning $100, who presented on sexual assault of woman in Canada.

The first prize winners, Miriam Booy and Pamela Wiens, won $200 for their presentation on the prevention of malaria. During the week, Booy and Wiens raised money to send mosquito nets to Africa. They decided to donate 10% of their earnings to the further prevention of the disease.