About Us
#Students_Against_COVID aims to bring students & allies together across the globe to create a common platform to share ideas, brainstorm together, & collaborate if possible during the Coronavirus Pandemic. The movement aims to promote efficient and professional communication all the while encouraging others to champion scientifically-based facts & ideas, and building synergies.
Our Mission
- Bridge communities worldwide
- Empower responsible student and ally voices and initiatives
- Champion Scientific Principles
- Encourage social accountability
- Facilitate innovation and collaboration
- Spread credible information about COVID-19
- Support essential workers
Our Vision
#Students_Against_COVID is a grassroots movement with members from diverse backgrounds pursuing common goals. These goals consist of, but are not limited to, championing science, supporting essential workers, facilitating innovation and collaboration, fostering inclusivity, and promoting social accountability. A short term immediate goal is to help flatten the curve of coronavirus 19 spread. It’s long term goal is also to enable others’ worldwide to be in better positions to be leaders of positive change in their community. We value students and allies’ voices, and we want to enable a culture that empowers their ability to make an impact across the globe long after this pandemic. It aims to achieve these goals in part by encouraging professionalism, integrity, tolerance, responsibility, honesty, respect, inclusion, diversity, teamwork, common courtesy, and civility amongst all members and allies. SAC believes in promoting transparency and to better ensure reliability of sources and credibility. It has created and strives to create further protocols in place to solicit authenticity of information if necessary.
Our Beginnings
Origin
It started with a simple tweet by fourth year University of Michigan Medical and Public Health student, Marina Haque. She called upon others worldwide to use the hashtag #Students_Against_COVID to share how they were fighting against the novel virus strain that dramatically continues to change the world around us. Within just one month, use of the hashtag had brought 175+ students and allies together across 45+ countries. Inspired by a drive to help address the challenges COVID-19 has introduced into our society, the students have contributed their unique voices, passions, and skill sets to fight COVID-19.Our Logo
Students Against COVID Logo was created by Ashley John, an undergraduate student from Wayne State University, USA. The group’s motto was developed by Christos Tsagkaris, a medical student in Greece. The logo is based off of Greek mythology: when you want to make waves, you need to be willing to rock the boat. This motto served as the premise for the logo creation, which shows the boats along with the students and allies around the globe.
Tsagkaris further envisioned the movement had the potential to resemble an ancient Agora. Agora, a dynamic civic space in ancient Greek city-states, was the center of the athletic, artistic, spiritual, and political life in the city. It was in the Agora that you could chat with philosophers and intellectual thinkers such as Socrates and Sophocles, or encounter leaders and policymakers such as Pericles. In the democratic Agora of Athens philosophy, arts and humanities flourished hand in hand with concrete decision making and transparency.
Two thousand years later, #Students_Against_COVID serves as a virtual Agora where students and allies across the globe cross paths, bring up ideas, exchange constructive feedback, and build synergies. Under the European notion of “Act – React – Impact” the movement seeks for students and allies across academic and professional disciplines in Europe as well as other parts of the globe to unite those dedicated to championing science during this crisis.