Who Are the People in Your Network?

No. Not phone network, Illinois Student Hurricane Network. Remember the Sesame Street song, Who are the People in Your Neighborhood? Substitute "network" for neighborhood as you read along and check the blog for periodic interviews with the students that make up the SHN chapter at the College of Law. Why? Well, because I hope you'll be inspired by them and think about joining us in the future. These guys and girls are a great resource, if you want to learn more.

Miranda Soucie is not only next year's President of the SHN at Illinois, she was also the director of the College of Law's recent production of Eve Ensler's Vagina Monolgues. Here's a Q & A with Miranda about SHN and the Vagina Monologues and here's what she had to say:

Q: So, you were involved in the Vagina Monologues, how did that overlap with the Student Hurricane Network?
A: Um, the international focus of the Vagina Monologues and V-Day for 2008 is the women of New Orleans. So when I first started looking into doing the Vagina Monologues, and I found out about all the stuff that they are planning to do in New Orleans: donating to women's organizations in that area, [and] empowering women, I decided it was a great idea to get the Student Hurricane Network involved here in the Vagina Monologues.

Q: And you are also the President of the Student Hurricane Network? Is that correct?
A: Yes, I'm the incoming President.

Q: What are some of your plans or goals for SHN next year?
A: Well, currently we've been doing one trip [to New Orleans] a year. Last semester I believe we had 38 almost 40 people go on the trip. The trips are getting kind of large, so one of my main goals is to do two trips. Whether that be two during winter break or one during spring break, we're still working on. Also, we're planning on doing a lot more fund raising, involving football games and the like. So I'd be looking out for a lot more fund raising to be happening.

Q: And, just overall what was your experience with the Vagina Monologues? Being the director?
A: It was crazy. It was a lot. It was a huge time commitment, but overall the ladies were wonderful, the community was pretty receptive to the event and I think it's something we can definitely build on and do again in the future.

Q: As an alum of this past trip, what did you do in New Orleans?
A: I worked for the assistant of Bill Quigley, who is a member of the Loyola [University] law clinic. He does a lot of public interest work and we did a lot with the public housing while we were there. We worked with the protesters who were arrested. Spent a lot of time in court and I got a few instances to go along to some of their clients and deliver groceries and meet some people. It was pretty neat.

Q: What initially attracted you to participate in SHN?
A: I have a lot of friends that live in that area and I've always spent a lot of time down there. I just think it's terrible what's happened to that area.