By Miro ’28
Leading an affinity group is something that I wouldn’t have thought of when I first came to Harvard-Westlake. In fact, in 7th grade, I rarely attended any club meetings because I assumed they were for more ‘established’ people. I sporadically went to the Jewish club as I am Jewish, but that was it. Now as a 9th grader, I regret not putting myself out there earlier and taking the many opportunities given to me.
In 8th grade, I started to realize that the clubs at Harvard-Westlake were really open to anyone and nobody would be turned away. I started going to the Jewish club every week as it was and still is an integral part of my identity, but my parents are also from Iran and Iraq, so I consider myself Middle Eastern as well. I heard of the Middle Eastern and North African Student Association (MENASA), so I went every Tuesday. I got to see the inner workings of how it was run, especially because it was a smaller group than the Jewish Club. At the end of 8th grade, I was chosen to be a leader of the club the year after along with 2 other of my friends in my grade, one of whom was already a leader.
At Harvard-Westlake, anyone can go to any club, and you can go to multiple clubs. Each day, there is a 25-minute time period after the second period for clubs and affinity groups to meet. Furthermore, as someone with multiple identities such as being Jewish and Middle Eastern, Harvard-Westlake makes me feel like an integral part of both communities. In 8th grade, I started also going to clubs for my interests such as game design as well as affinity groups. I still go to MENASA on Tuesdays, the Jewish Club on Wednesdays, and the Game Design Club on Thursdays.
At the start of the new school year, I was thinking about how to make this club the most successful it could be. I learned that leading a club could be fun as well as requiring responsibility. My friends had an idea for a poster that would lean into what people our age were interested in, at the time the album by Charli XCX, “Brat.” We made a poster that fit the theme and hung it up around the school.
The week after, we had our first meeting. I was expecting 6 or 7 people to show up like the year before, but to my surprise, I watched with the other leaders and the faculty leader as 17 people trickled in! I wasn’t completely sure how to manage a group of people like this, but we passed around a sheet of paper for everyone to write their emails so they could be added to our new email list. We also played the online trivia game, Kahoot, to see who knows the most about Middle Eastern culture. It was a great first meeting!
From there until now, we’ve maintained the same level of activity in our club, and each meeting grew our community more and more up to 25 people currently! I worked with the other leaders to create a sweatshirt design, which the majority of our club ordered. We also extended our collaboration with the Girls Club to create a fundraiser for education for Afghan girls. Recently, we even made an Instagram account that shows updates from our club and events! The future of our club is only looking brighter, and leading it has impacted me as well, such as improving my public speaking skills.
