The Power to Do Good

BY STACE DUMOSKI

NOBEL PEACE LAUREATE NADIA MURAD, CHAPMAN’S NEWEST PRESIDENTIAL FELLOW, CHALLENGES STUDENTS WITH A MESSAGE OF HOPE AND JUSTICE.

Who are you and what will you fight for?”

This is the question Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and human rights activist Nadia Murad posed to the graduates of the Class of 2022 during Chapman University’s Commencement celebration in May.

“This audience is different from all other audiences I’ve spoken to because I can feel the hope all around me,” she said, addressing an audience of 6,000 graduates, faculty, friends and families gathered on Wilson Field.

Murad, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2018, offered a challenge to the new graduates as they prepared to leave Chapman.

“The world is big, and beautiful, and troubled. It needs you,” she said. “No matter what you pursue after today – whether you go to work for a tech company or become a writer or a teacher. If you start a family or run for political office. If you become a doctor or an artist or none of these things or a combination of all of them, will you also try to make things better? Will you look at your life, big moments and small, good and bad, and use what you believe in to help others?” ENGAGING STUDENTS IN THE QUEST FOR THE GREATER GOOD

CAPTIVITY, FREEDOM AND THE FIGHT FOR JUSTICE

“This audience is different from all other audiences I’ve spoken to because I can feel the hope all around me.”

- Nadia Murad Murad’s message was heavy with the weight of personal experience. In 2014, her home in northern Iraq was attacked by ISIS, an act of genocide against the minority Yazidi population. Thousands were murdered, including Murad’s mother and six bothers. Murad herself was taken captive and, along with thousands of other women and children, held in sexual slavery by the invading forces, until she was able to escape.

Since gaining her freedom, Murad has shared her story many times – to world leaders and human rights organizations, in her memoir, “The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State” – not for sympathy, but to raise awareness about the plight of her people and of others who have suffered through similar tragedies. Through her organization Nadia’s Initiative, she works to restore the community of her homeland and to bring justice to the survivors, while aiding survivors of gender violence around the world.

This summer, Murad began a three-year appointment as a Presidential Fellow at Chapman, providing even more Chapman students with the chance to learn from and be inspired by her experiences fighting for social justice.

During a pre-Commencement event, “From Genocide to Justice: A Conversation with Nobel Peace Prize Winner,” Murad answered questions from students. Murad, now a student herself at American University in Washington, D.C., spoke to the importance of education and learning about those who are different from yourself.

“Only one other time, when I moderated a conversation with Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, have I witnessed an audience so absorbed in every single word spoken,” said Jennifer Keene, Dean of Chapman’s Wilksion College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, which hosted the question and answer session.

Murad and Chapman University President Daniele Struppa pose with a new bust of the activist that will be placed on the university’s campus. The quote from Murad on the pedestal reads, “The world has only one border. It is called humanity. The differences between us are small compared to our shared humanity. Put humans first.”