This year, keep yourself safe
Picture it. The University of Regina in 2024. You are minding your business, going to your next class on campus. Suddenly, you see someone approaching you.
They compliment your shoes. Or your hair. Or your outfit. You are flattered, so you decide to engage. They seem really nice. They are warm and friendly. You’ve had a difficult semester. You feel lonely. You are having a difficult time making friends.
With each conversation, you lower your guard. Before you know it, you exchange phone numbers with this friendly person, and you have been invited to an exciting event where there is free food and refreshments in a secluded location. Like many of us, food is a soft spot for you, so of course, you decide it wouldn’t hurt to go to this event and potentially meet other people and make some friends.
When you go there, you have fun. However, each time you go, a trap is being set for you, and months down the line, you might find out that this event is about some ideology you might not know enough about, and you might find yourself being pressured into doing things you do not want to engage in.
This is one of the common ways people get trapped in cults. Unfortunately, university campuses are a main target for cults and their recruiters, scoping out the scene for new victims.
As a student, you are vulnerable because you are trying to find a place where you fit in. Cults are well aware of this, and what better place for them to lure unassuming people than a campus bustling with students roaming around and nobody physically there to watch out for the safety of these students?
Cults do not have your best interest at heart, although they might seem like they do. It is all a façade. It is a trap meant to push you into their world.
Cults know that most students often do not have much life experience. They are aware that many students wish they could make new friends. Additionally, many students move away from home to go to school.
Thus, separation from friends and family creates a sense of loneliness. This separation creates a gap for students. This is where cults enter the scene as they swoop in to fill this gap.
Being in university can be lonely and crippling. We are surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands of students, but the presence of community on campus is dying. Students do not feel protected. Students do not have people to look out for their safety and security. Students do not have anyone to look out for their emotional and mental well-being.
As your fellow student, I encourage you to go out of your way to talk to people you see daily. A kind word can do so much for someone’s day. If not, a simple smile can go a long way. We do not know what the many faces we see every day are going through.
It is our duty to create an environment where people feel safe, they feel seen, and they can thrive rather than just survive. This is how we bring back community; by looking out for each other. In the end, this is how we protect ourselves and our friends from cults roaming around campus looking for vulnerable people to recruit.
