On Nov. 8, Typhoon Haiyan made landfall in Eastern Samar, Philippines, leaving 230,501 injured and a death toll of 5,235 and climbing, according to a Nov. 22 CNN report. Less than a week later on Thursday Nov. 14, a small group of students from the organization Students for a Just and Stable Future packed into a car bound for Tufts University for an emergency meeting about organizing a student fast—a fast to spread awareness about the superstorm's devastation and turn the conversation more broadly toward the urgency of the climate crisis.

Since that conversation, students from 75 colleges across the country, including 18 Brandeis students, have united in solidarity with lead climate negotiator for the Philippines Naderev "Yeb" Saño is fasting at the 19th Conference of the Parties, a United Nations climate change conference in Warsaw, Poland, until the UN comes out of its final round of talks with meaningful progress toward fighting climate change.

At Brandeis, the official fasting period began on Nov. 18 and ended on Nov. 22, while Saño broke his fast on Nov. 24.

The students participating in the fast were inspired by Saño's speech at the conference. "What my country is going through as a result of this extreme climate event is madness," Saño said.

As they were driving to Tufts, some students expressed doubts about whether a fast was the right approach to raising awareness, but they were curious to hear what the Tufts activists had to say.

The Tufts and Brandeis students at the meeting decided to create a Facebook group titled "Stop The Madness: Solidarity Fast for Emergency Climate Action" to organize their efforts. "It blew up very quickly," said Abbie Goldberg '16. "We were expecting it to be 50 people at best. [It has] over 1,200 people at the moment."

Matt Smetana '17, another SJSF member convinced one of his friends to join the fast. "He was really opposed to the idea but then I showed him the Facebook page and he wanted to be part of the movement," he said in an interview with the Justice.

Those fasting in solitary with Saño in Warsaw did so for two weeks, but Brandeis students decided to organize the fast on a rotating basis, with at least one student fasting at any given point in the week. "We wanted to have people fasting the whole time but that is kind of a lot to ask. We are busy college students," said Goldberg.

Although many students chose to fast for one day, some made the decision to fast for longer. Martin Hamilton '16, for example, fasted on Monday through Friday except for Tuesday, and Goldberg went without food for the entire 5-day period.

"It struck me how many people were worried about me, ... but if I passed out [someone could] get food for me. It would be so easy and for so many people, it is not that easy. We need to be worrying about them," Goldberg said.

In addition to the fast, the students of SJSF organized a vigil on Wednesday night in the Shapiro Campus Center for victims of the typhoon. Some of the SJSF members, as well as activists from the greater Boston area, also attended a similar vigil in Harvard Square on the Monday they began fasting.

Apart from the vigils, Hamilton explained the group has also been active on campus in other ways. "We have been doing 'fasting meals' in the dining halls ... sitting there with empty plates and talking to people about what we're doing. We definitely recruited some people [to fast] that way," he said.

With sustained winds of 195 miles per hour and gusts reaching 235 miles per hour, a Nov. 8 CNN report stated that the storm "may be the strongest tropical cyclone to hit land anywhere in recorded history."

The students fasted with the conviction that the storm is the product of climate change instigated by the increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a result of carbon emissions. "You can't say that Typhoon Haiyan was solely caused by climate, but [typhoons] are all part of this escalating pattern of extreme weather events," Hamilton said.

Goldberg also emphasized the role of the United States in the crisis. "The U.S. is among the primary perpetrators of the climate crisis; we are the ones emitting carbon ... the people in the Philippines, that is not them," she said.

"We don't have time to keep debating whether climate change is real or not when people in the Philippines are dying," Hamilton said.

The solidarity fast is just one event SJSF has organized. Their main initiative is divestment, a movement on many college campuses to get universities to divest from fossil fuel corporations. Hamilton noted that at this point, "divestment and SJSF have become almost synonymous."

Additionally, SJSF members have participated in other events both off and on campus, advocating for a safer and more sustainable planet. Such events include attending a youth climate activism conference on Pittsburgh and canvassing in Maine to pass a South Portland ordinance to prevent the construction of a tar sands pipeline.

The group never imagined their solidarity campaign would be as successful as it has been. Goldberg called the response "a very powerful display of the networking we have within SJSF and in this area, and the ability to call on each other in the climate justice movement."

Hamilton agreed that their efforts were not in vain. "We did not end up being just a bunch of sad, hungry college students."