International impact
Susan Yam (SMG'07) and the International Students Consortium raised $25,000 to aid earthquake relief efforts in Pakistan.
On May 25, Susan Yam and other members of the International Students Consortium (ISC) traveled to the Pakistani Embassy in New York to present a check for approximately $25,000 to aid earthquake relief efforts. The group raised the money by hosting an April 21 benefit concert featuring the Sufi musician Omar Faruk Tekbilek. BU President Robert A. Brown spoke at the concert.
The ISC was formed more than five years ago with the mission of bringing together international and domestic students, and one of the ways it achieves this is through an annual fundraising event.
Yam (SMG’07), the organization’s senior vice president, used skills she developed in the School of Management to help promote the concert both within and outside of the BU community. “We knew that although students [at BU] would be interested in coming to the concert, we also realized that the music that was playing would be very tailored,” she says. Their solution was to advertise throughout Boston, using widely circulated publications such as the Boston Globe. The result was a sold-out event, with more than 500 guests packing the School of Law auditorium.
Yam says that Brown’s attendance and speech really contributed to the fundraiser’s success. “That really showed that [BU] was behind what we were doing, because I know he has a busy schedule, but he still came to support a cause that we worked so hard to achieve,” she says. “That really gave us the encouragement that we needed.”
This summer, the ISC will be helping out with International Students Orientation, which takes place every Friday through July 26. Members are also in the middle of planning their fifth annual Moonlight Cruise, to be held in September, and a conference on international security and democracy, tentatively set for March. Yam is interning this summer at Ernst and Young, one of the world’s largest professional services firms.