Coe College recently issued the following announcement.
We rise together.
These words live in the hearts of Mimi Daoud ’23 and Rebecca Pacetti ’23. As fervent believers in the power of unity for the good of humankind, these juniors are inspiring the community with every brush stroke carrying this message on their new mural for the Reintegration Initiative for Safety and Empowerment (RISE) program in Cedar Rapids.
After touring the new office just three days before it opened to the public, Mimi and Rebecca dedicated themselves to creating a welcoming and uplifting space for RISE, a program guiding newly released incarcerated individuals toward resources and services such as housing, transportation, food and jobs.
“The office itself was pretty bare. The primary focus was on getting resources set up for participants and not so much decorating the place, which I think is a very important factor for RISE participants,” Mimi said.
RISE is a program with the nonprofit Fresh Start Ministries, serving people during and after incarceration.
“They might not have anywhere to go. They have no resources, not even a toothbrush. They might not know where they’re spending their next night,” Rebecca said.
The mural design was heavily focused on RISE values to celebrate diversity and treat people without judgment. These values stood out to Mimi and Rebecca when Assistant Professor of Social and Criminal Justice Neal McNabb first introduced them to RISE.
As both Mimi and Rebecca learned more, they wanted to increase their involvement with RISE. With resume and interview support from C3: Creativity, Careers, Community Director of Community & Civic Engagement Joe Demarest, they both secured opportunities to take what they learn in the classroom and apply it to a professional environment with RISE.
Rebecca works at RISE managing the budget and helping expand services to include financial literacy classes and a new game night. At Coe, Rebecca is double majoring in social and criminal justice and sociology.
Meanwhile, Mimi is pursuing a double major in psychology and social and criminal justice with a minor in communication studies while interning with RISE this fall. She is leading RISE’s new arts program and is responsible for securing a partnership with Eastern Iowa Academy of Arts to supply materials for the art classes.
“We’re all human. We’re all a mesh of different types of features, traits, backgrounds and experiences. Once we stop looking at those characteristics and start looking at the experiences that people have been through and judging them by those, we can then actually unify and become a beneficial and positive society for everyone involved, which is what RISE is trying to do,” Mimi said.
The initiative to step into these roles as leaders extends beyond the determination to gain hands-on experience. For these Kohawks, empowering people is their life’s purpose. After Coe, Rebecca aspires to work in social services with kids or teens, and Mimi plans to pursue a career in counseling or therapy.
In a city that offers hundreds of real-world experiences for Kohawks, Coe’s tight-knit relationships in the community make it possible for students to find the perfect fit for hands-on experience.
Original source can be found here.
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