Students came together in order to raise awareness for an important cause and hosted a day full of events for a cause that affects people locally, nationally and globally: poverty.

The International Student Council hosted the 12-Hour Famine on Saturday, an event where the council encouraged participating students to fast from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m.

In order to help students fully understand the impact poverty has on people around the world in developing countries as well as in the United States, they encouraged students to refrain from using laptops, cell phones and other technological devices and to come to Martin Hall to participate in different activities from noon until 6 p.m.

“This was an awareness event where we had participants fast,” said Nidhi Shah, graduate in biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology. “We hosted different activities centering around issues such as hunger, corruption and poverty.”

“I’ve fasted for medical reasons before, but this was the first time I did it for a deeper reason,” said Scott Byrd, junior in history. “It was really an eye-opening experience to see what people around the world go through every day. It really makes me realize how fortunate I am that I have the privilege of going to the fridge or to a grocery store whenever I get hungry. It makes me more passionate about this cause.”

The International Student Council first hosted the 12-Hour Famine in November of 2009. At both that event and the second one held Saturday, about 25 people fasted and participated in the events.

“This is basically a smaller version that was inspired by the 30-Hour Famine that World Vision has,” Shah said. “We wanted to see how this went before we tried the 30-Hour Famine. We now want to strategize and find ways to encourage more people to participate.”

The International Student Council hosted different activities throughout the day, all centering on different aspects of poverty, including one major issue — access to clean water.

Worldwide, 884 million people do not have access to safe water, which is roughly one-eighth of the world’s population, according to WaterAid, an international non-governmental organization.

WaterAid works to improve access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation in the world’s poorest communities.

In order to improve students’ awareness on world water issues, the International Student Council had an activity called “Contaminated.” To do this activity, students were separated into groups known as “tribes.” The point of the activity was to make their way from Martin Hall following differing paths to a point on the far side of Lake Laverne to get water and bring it back to the starting point.

“We wanted people to understand that people have to walk to far-off places to get water,” Shah said. “We made them work by giving different people certain disabilities. In developing communities, people sometimes have to go through dangerous situations to get to water. So one person might have a broken leg and have to hop all the way while someone might only be able to use one eye or arm.”

What students didn’t know was that the water they were getting was actually not very clean and was, in fact, muddy. This was to get students to realize that the water people in poverty and developing countries have access to is often dirty.

“This activity takes students on about a 10-minute walk to get to the water, but when they get to the finishing point and see that they get muddy water, it’s a shocking result for them,” said Ahmad Al-Saygh, senior in community and regional planning. “It hits them that this is what people in developing communities have to get everyday.”

“The first step in overcoming an issue is being aware of it,” Shah said. “We want to spread awareness of these global issues as much as possible and are hoping our participants are really impacted by this and tell their friends and classmates about it.”