CAFE’s Name Change: Why was it necessary?

by Anisha N. ‘22

A lot has changed over the past few months, whether it’s within our school community or the country at large. We’ve learned the importance of sharing our voices and advocating for what we believe in through Black Lives Matter protests and educating ourselves by talking with our peers about injustice and systemic racism people of color face in this country. In light of this, the representatives of Bryn Mawr’s all-school organization CAFE collectively decided to change the organization’s name from “Community Alliance for Everyone” to “Community Advocacy for Equity.” 

When asked about why CAFE chose to change its name, CAFE Vice President Zawadi S. ’22 explained that “We felt as though our old name was too general and open to interpretation, so we wanted to change it to words that had more specificity and tied into our goals as an organization.”

Allie G. ’22, CAFE Sec Treas, replied that the original name’s  “community alliance” implied “that we’re just a group of allies, but we want to advocate and have a mission to improve the equity within Bryn Mawr. Although we are always allies to all our different communities, we wanted CAFE to stand for something more powerful than that.” 

CAFE President Sophie L. ‘21 added that “We wanted to change the name to something that A) actually meant something and B) was more in line with CAFE’s goals to create a more just and equitable space in both Bryn Mawr and the greater community.” 

With this new change, CAFE is hoping that starting this school year, they can work towards having more events where students can advocate and fight for what they genuinely believe in. This gives more opportunities for us to become activists who help make real change, rather than just talk about changes we want to see, bringing students and our community as a whole together.