The call to action does not end after Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) and several other student organizations on campus are sponsoring Social Change Week to continue working for social justice every day.

Social Change Week, which began with yesterday's MLK events, will end Saturday with an organizational fair and a concert.

"It will include programs to get people to take part in something. A call to action is the focus," said USG Vice President Takkeem Morgan, who helped organize the week.

In October 2002, the university held Social Change Block Party, a daylong event on the HUB lawn consisting of an organizational fair, student and faculty speakers, and dance performances.

"It went really well, but we wanted something more substantial this time," Morgan said.

This year's event, called "Education through Exposure, Change through Action," will include several keynote addresses and a discussion forum, in addition to the organizational fair, a dance competition and a hip-hop concert.

The group Rescue Childhood is sponsoring the first event, a talk by Chivy Sok, project director of the University of Iowa's Child Labor Research Initiative and a former child laborer.

"She is a dynamic speaker, and she has the added benefit of having lived the life of a child worker, which gives her a lot more credibility," Rescue Childhood President Ashley Waddell said of the group's decision to bring Sok to Penn State. "I think people will want to listen to her."

Sok's goal is to have students write a declaration to support the rights of children, Waddell said.

Rescue Childhood members have written the petition and will be asking students to sign it this week before sending it to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

"Children can't be their own activists," Waddell said. "Our support as student leaders is really important."

Matthew Zielinski, president of the Association of Residence Hall Students, said his organization is eager to promote and financially sponsor Social Change Week.

"I think it will really open some people's eyes," he said.

Some groups, such as Penn State's chapter of Amnesty International, which participated in last year's block party, are eager to have another opportunity to call students' attentions to important global issues.

"I think Social Change Week is a marvelous idea. The block party was good, but it was more like, blink and you'll miss it," Amnesty International President Eve Badia said.

Badia said Amnesty International will take part in the organizational fair by encouraging students who visit the group's table to write letters to government officials about topics such as racial profiling and detention of people seeking asylum in the United States.

"Social Change Week is trying to create a consciousness that you can make a difference," she said.