Engagement 3/2: Mediation

In high school I was part of a club called Amnesty International, which is a worldwide organization that is committed to holding people accountable for human rights violations around the world, mainly through the process of letter writing. I think this is a great example of how writing mediates, because I think social advocacy is a form of mediation. The simple act of writing a letter can create social change. I don’t remember much specifics of the kinds of letters I wrote, but usually they were addressed to politicians to free people who were being wrongfully imprisoned. I remember one letter was urging a governor in one of the southern states where the death penalty is still allowed to halt the execution of a man who was clearly not mentally present when he allegedly committed a crime. Some of the challenges of mediation include organizing ideas in a way that is coherent and argumentative.