Students in Aiken High School’s NextGen organization recently returned from a trip to Monterey, California, where they learned about nuclear disarmament – the reduction or elimination of nuclear weapons – at The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.
NextGen is a student activism organization, and each year students within the group are given the chance to take a trip that will teach them more about the world around them.
The James Martin Center, located on the Middlebury Institute of International Studies campus, is a non-government association devoted to curbing the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
AHS NextGen mentor, Kayla Hostetler, said that besides her students meeting individuals from across the country and Japan, they also had the chance to explore the West Coast and California’s Redwood forests.
“The benefits for my students were great … Every day there was a multi-disciplinary and cross-cultural learning occurring,” she said.
Senior Eric Cribbs said that while in Monterey, he and his peers had the chance to meet with students from Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japanese cities that were struck by two U.S. atomic bombs in August 1945.
These students shared stories about their lives and how they are still experiencing the impact of those bombings today.
“We just learned from them,” said Cribbs. “They educated us on how bad nuclear weapons actually are.”
Cribbs also talked about what it was like to meet the Japanese students.
“It’s crazy to see how fast that you can connect with somebody that lives in a different country … it makes it seem hard to understand why nationals around the world have feuds or rivalries or want to hurt each other,” he said.
Senior student Katrina Williams joined NextGen during her sophomore year and spoke briefly about what the organization means to her. “NextGen is like a family to me … I can voice my opinions. I can hear other people’s opinions and I can help my community at the same time,” said Williams.
“It was a new topic for me,” she said about the subject of nuclear disarmament. “I didn’t really know too much about it, and just hearing everyone’s stories and how everyone was affected by it and how I was affected by it and I didn’t even know it was very eye-opening.”
Williams offers this advice to other high school students in the area: “Educate yourself and once you educate yourself tell someone else so you can share the word.”
