Creating solidarity with the refugees from IICONN, was something that I worked on throughout the semester. In Hannah Arendt’s text, Collective Responsibility, she explains the ways that all communities must take responsibility of the actions that people and leaders in their community make. She states, “this kind of responsibility in my opinion is always political, whether it appears in the older form, when a whole community take its upon itself to be responsible for whatever one of it’s members has done or whether a community is being held responsible for what it has done in its name” (Arendt, 149). She believes that if one member of the community does something negative, the whole community is responsible for the actions, because the entire community has agreed to be a part of it. Just as we are responsible for the actions of our president, or congress, because we have agreed as a nation that these people were qualified to be our leaders.

In my personal opinion I believe that working with the IICONN youth is a demonstration of my collective responsibility according to Arendt. My class and myself worked with the IICONN youth to ease their transition into this country. We became friends with the students and treated them as members of our Fairfield Community. I was taken back on the day after the election when I heard one of the Refugees ask my classmate “since trump got elected will I have to go home”? Although none of us in the classroom had the exact answer to that question we can hopefully influence that answer.

After working with the refugees and making them a part of our community we have a responsibility to share with the rest of the world the impact that this had on our lives. As we connected with the refugees we are aware of the problems facing the issue of resettlement. These children now have the chance to create a new life for themselves. They no longer have to face the violence and terror of living in fragile and failed states. It is now our collective responsibility as a class to spread the word on the importance of protecting these children, and hopefully the awareness will aid to them staying in our country.