National Volunteer Week Honoree–Shadan Mohajerin

Shadan Kapri Mohajerin's deep commitment to public service has been shown by over a thousand hours of volunteer work on the local, national, and international level. During law school, she volunteered for two and a half years as the President of the Multi-Cultural Law Caucus (MLC). In this role, she organized food drives for the local food bank. Clothing drives for homeless women and children, book and toy drives for children fighting cancer, and Christmas toy drives for underprivileged children in the community. She also created a program that recruited law students to tutor immigrants learning English as a second language.

She volunteered in coordinating a Mental Health Law Conference that brought together attorneys and members of the community to increase advocacy for individuals suffering from mental illness. She was also a member of the steering committee that coordinated the first International Conference for the Institute for Action Against Hate. She helped raise over $10,000 for the Gonzaga Public Interest Law Project by gaining local support and donations from over 10 local and national businesses and volunteering countless hours for the event and its promotion in the community.

Shadan’s volunteer work during law school extended far beyond the local and even national level when she volunteered for the United Nations Volunteers Summit for Information Society and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. As a research volunteer she spent over eight months volunteering for the UN for over four hundred hours. Her volunteer work for the U.N. began from August 2003 to December 2003. She was an online volunteer who provided research and writing in support of the United Nations December 2003 World Summit in Geneva, Switzerland. Her research focused on how volunteers are using technology to help the United Nations reach its Millennium Development Goals. The activities researched by Shadan reflected innovative and unique approaches to solving the serious problems of gender inequality, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and assisting least developed countries in economic development. The work by volunteers were brought together and showcased in a report during the first stage of the World Summit. She was even asked to send a video clip stating her name and volunteer work in support of the summit. Video clips from volunteers around the world were displayed outside the world summit.

Her volunteer work for the U.N. continued from May- August 2004. She volunteered to assist the United Nations by researching the important and devastating social problem of drug abuse in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei. Her research looked at a multidisciplinary approach to fighting the drug problem in these countries through national legislation, domestic efforts, and international cooperation among the neighboring countries and the international community. Her volunteer work had a large-scale impact since it was a part of a research project for the ASEAN and China Cooperative Operations in Response to Dangerous Drug (ACCORD) for the purpose of improving global information about the fight against drug abuse. ACCORD represents the commitment by Asian countries in pursuit of a drug free continent by 2015.