From the president
Aaliyah Moore, a third-year student at Bates College, has been a committed leader in efforts to support justice-involved individuals in Lewiston and around the state of Maine. She has served as our Harward Center Outreach Fellow on Justice Reform issues for the past two years, and in this capacity she has worked closely with the Maine Prison Re-Entry Network to lead a workshop series that works to educate the public and combat the stigma surrounding those who are re-entering society after incarceration. She has also worked closely with the College Guild program, which offers correspondence education courses for individuals who are currently incarcerated. In addition to the work she has done to coordinate programs for incarcerated or formerly incarcerated individuals, she has also worked tirelessly to create sustainable opportunities for other Bates volunteers to become involved in justice reform work. Her efforts have increased our ability to offer meaningful community-engaged learning opportunities for students in courses on punishment and crime in the United States. Aaliyah has also been proactive in developing a plan to sustain and grow the work that she has done by training a successor to continue the work she is doing as an Outreach Fellow.
Personal Statement
My desire to assist communities through social justice and legal reform initiatives stems from growing up in a beautifully diverse community veiled by poverty, oppression, injustice, and neglect. During my first year at Bates College, I immediately sought community engagement opportunities through the Harward Center for Community Partnerships. Part of what drew me to Bates is the diverse external community and the extensive work Bates does to foster relationships with residents. My work as an intern with College Guild, a non-profit organization that provides free education to incarcerated individuals, focused on incorporating multiculturalism within curricular units. I am also a Community Outreach Fellow at Bates, which entails developing relationships with community partners and then collaborating with student volunteers to advance social justice initiatives. For instance, I partnered with Maine Prisoner Reentry Network and Bates students to lead a Squashing Stigma workshop titled “Unspoken Truths About Incarcerated Women” to debunk stereotypes about incarcerated women in Maine. I am also a Bonner Racial Justice Fellow, encouraging students of color to engage in community organizations prioritizing racial equity and justice. As part of this work, I led a collaboration between BIPOC college students and a non-profit that serves marginalized youth in Maine.