It has only been a little over month since I had started college, and I already know what is the best decision I have made. Don't tell me that I have more time to experience new opportunities, because I know that. Of course there will be plenty of other decisions I need to make in life, and those will all hold some level of importance. But this is undoubtedly the most important.

The best decision I had ever made was to join my college's chapter of Amnesty International.

This past Saturday my fellow members and I attended AI's Mid-Atlantic regional conference at the University of Sciences in Philadelphia. As a freshman who had just joined the team, I was beyond excited to attend. The conference was exactly how I expected it to be and that's why I loved it so much.

Dozens of college students from across the region of all different backgrounds and ethnicities came together for one reason and one reason only: To promote change. Because we realize that the world is not a beautiful place. That every day people are being accused for crimes they did not commit. That every day young girls are being forced into marriages. That every day people who choose to come out regarding their sexuality are shunned by society. That every day people are living without adequate education, food, or healthcare. But it is Amnesty International's goal to eradicate these inequalities that exist within our world. It is our goal to stop seeing people as a man, woman, or a homosexual - and start seeing people exactly as they are. We all are human and we are entitled to rights.

In high school, my favorite memory was when I received a medal as a senior at the 2015-2016 Model United Nations Conference in Lehigh University. MUN is a role play extracurricular activity where students represent countries a part of the United Nations and are split up into various committees where they present resolutions. The goal of the UN is to have the world come together and promote peace, through the United Nations's declaration of Human Rights. Adopted on December 10, 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a document that expresses rights entitled to all human beings. These rights include, but are not limited to the following: All humans are born free and equal, slavery and the slave trade in all forms shall be banished, everyone is entitled to a fair and public trial, marriage shall only be conducted through the full consent of both spouses, and every person has the right to an education. To date, 192 countries have signed The Declaration of Human Rights. Unfortunately, most of those countries including the United States do not guarantee these rights to every persons.

At least at my high school, the only opportunity given to us that was MUN related was the Lehigh conference in the Spring. There were no other club meetings throughout the school year or other related events. When I first signed up to be a part of Amnesty at Cedar Crest College, I had a hunch that it would be very similar to MUN, and it totally is. Both Amnesty International and the United Nations work together to promote human rights worldwide.

At the Amnesty conference this Saturday, I learned of all the wonderful things the organization has accomplished. Activists in El Salvador helped free Carmen Guadalupe Vasquez who was jailed for 30 years after having a miscarriage that was mistaken as an abortion. Members of Amnesty Togo helped make torture a crime in Togo. Amnesty is a huge believer against the Death Penalty and they helped in making Fiji the 99th country to abolish the death penalty.

But my favorite thing about Amnesty is their Write for Rights Campaign. This is a campaign where every December Amnesty supporters write tweets, emails, letters, petitions, and/or Facebook posts for people who have been denied basic rights. As written on their official website, " On his 69th birthday, 19 February 2016, Louisiana prisoner Albert Woodfox walked free – 44 years after he was first put into solitary confinement in the USA. More than 200,000 people took action for Albert during Write for Rights 2015."

While the worldwide Amnesty community has the power to do the unimaginable, everything starts with the local communities, and every community has a story.

Cedar Crest has a story as well. We have just started last year and already have over 50 members. Cedar Crest was the first Amnesty Chapter in the country to hold a rally concerning war crimes and genocide in Burundi. This year we hope to hold events concerning domestic issues such as Black Lives Matter and the Keystone Pipeline controversy. As a new member, I can't wait to see all that we accomplish in the next four years.

But perhaps my most favorite thing about Amnesty International is its slogan. - Action for human rights. Hope for humanity.