Four Xavier University of Louisiana students have taken the first-place prize during the collegiate finals of the Department of Homeland Security Invent2Prevent Competition. The Invent2Prevent program encourages student teams at the high school or college level to develop innovative projects that seek to prevent targeted violence and terrorism in local communities.
The Invent2Prevent competition is a semester-long project, with each university team identifying, evaluating, and proposing a solution to a current threat facing the nation. The solution comes in the version of a tool or program that would better educate a specific target audience on the potential ideologies that can lead individuals to commit acts of violence.
The Xavier students presented their project, “Still We R.O.S.E (Recognizing Our Shared Experience),” aimed at bridging the misunderstanding between Black and Jewish communities due to controversial statements made by certain Black celebrities. For the last six months, the team partnered with 26 organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans, to educate HBCU and high school students about the history of Black and Jewish relations and solidarity.
The winning team included Jamya Davis, a junior political science major; Anthony Jeanmarie IV, a junior studying sociology; Aarinii Parms-Green, a sophomore with a political science major; and Nehemiah Strawberry, a sophomore in the chemistry/pre-med major. Shearon Roberts, director of Xavier’s Exponential Honors Program and associate professor of mass communication at Xavier and faculty member in the university’s African American and Diaspora Studies Program, acted as an advisor to the student group.
