0 CommentsEmbracing diversity
Recognizing the need for increased diversity and tolerance, I founded the group Students to End Prejudice (STEP) at Strake Jesuit College Preparatory School. The mission of STEP is to eliminate prejudice and increase diversity through education and service. The club initiates projects that have a powerful message to help students be more tolerant and accepting of others perceived to be different because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, social class or health condition.
Strake Jesuit senior Shyon Haghpeykar brings students together to fight intolerance and social injustice.
Many factors influenced my organizing STEP. My grandparents lived in Iran during the country’s revolution in the late 1970s. Intense hatred and religious prejudice against non-Muslims was directed by the Iranian government. My family observed the Baha’i Faith, a religion based on the belief that all humanity was created by one God and is part of one human race. Baha’is believe in fellowship with people of all religious beliefs with no prejudice.
My family’s faith was at the center of Iran’s religious intolerance. They were looked down upon and didn’t have the same social rights. My grandfather was taken from his home in 1981, imprisoned and later killed for refusing to recant his faith. Even today, Baha’i followers are being imprisoned, their homes confiscated and students kept from attending college.
To promote unity through diversity, I organized educational and service-oriented activities to increase awareness of social justice, promote tolerance of other races, religions, gender and health conditions. These projects included participating in Houston’s Martin Luther King Day Parade, collecting 2,000 books for an impoverished elementary school, volunteering at a soup kitchen, and coordinating an exhibit spotlighting the disabled titled “Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Shame” during Strake Jesuit’s Spring Fling event.
I was honored to receive the Princeton Prize for Race Relations, an award for high school students presented by Princeton University. I was recognized for my work promoting harmony, understanding and respect among people of different races that has positively affected race relations at my school.
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