Students participate in activities at the Wick to celebrate the announcement of this year’s theme. Photo by Sarah Hall (C’23).
By Sarah Hall
Staff Writer
On Thursday last week, the Bairnwick Women’s Center (the Wick) invited students to participate in their annual theme reveal. Students gathered in the Wick lawn to celebrate the new theme, Rising with Resilience, through painting, writing, an open-mic, and of course, a shared Zaxby’s meal. This welcoming atmosphere proved to be a fitting opening for the house’s theme.
“For us right now, we just went through this long time period where everything was so uncertain, and now that there is a little more stability, we feel like now is the time to really flourish. We’re all unsure, we’re all uncomfortable, but we can rise together and really make good things out of this pandemic,” said Peggy Owusu-Ansah (C’23).
In deciding on this year’s theme, the Wick chose to focus on ideas which would resonate across the student body. The Wick has been well known as a center of support and community, and these ideas remained present as they composed a message of perseverance to present to Sewanee.
“We thought about the past year and wrote down words like communication and resilience, words that got us through the pandemic until we narrowed everything down to a few final words and settled on Rising with Resilience,” said Owusu-Ansah.
For many of the Wick residents, Rising with Resilience is a personal matter.
“I felt very stuck myself over the summer. Everything was on a learning curve, but overall I wouldn’t change it. Like I learned so much over this time, even though while I was in it, I didn’t like it all, but I feel like it led to a lot of character development, and I think it did that for a lot of people,” said Owusu-Ansah.
Alongside the theme, the Bairnwick Women’s Center has also made a few other new changes. Due to Covid-19 precautions, the Wick like many organizations have had to scale back on some of the services the offer. However, their website is still a helpful resource that is running.
“You can use the website if you need Plan B or a pregnancy test, or if you need peer support but you don’t want to call or text, you can use the chat feature. The peer support person does change every day, and that is updated on our website.There are just a lot of options,” said Owusu-Ansah.
In addition, the Wick will continue to host events throughout the year centered around the theme, Rising with Resilience.
“Whenever we pick a theme, we always like to have events centered around that topic. This week we’re having Isra Chaker on Wednesday to talk to us about mobilizing before an election and what it’s like to talk to people who don’t have similar viewpoints as you. We’re still working together even though we don’t all think the same. We’re also having a breast cancer event next week to talk about myths and misconceptions surrounding breast cancer where we can answer a lot of questions. It’s really just this idea that we all need to come in and learn something if we wish to rise together,” said Owusu-Ansah.
