The Darfur Region of Somalia...LOL

[radical]

Local students take STAND against genocide
By BOB AUDETTE, Reformer Staff
Article Launched: 03/10/2008 03:13:06 AM EDT

Monday, March 10
BRATTLEBORO -- A national student-led organization is calling on high-school-age Americans to take a stand against genocide in the Darfur region of Somalia.

During the last weekend in February, high school and college students convened in Boston to discuss the crisis in Darfur and how best to implement strategies to encourage national lawmakers to take action against genocide. The three-day conference was sponsored by a group called STAND -- a Student Anti-Genocide Coalition.

Three Brattleboro Union High School students attended, including Katherine Nolan, a senior, and STAND's outreach coordinator for Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

"I found out about Darfur when I went to the National Holocaust Museum in my sophomore year," said Nolan. "I was really shocked that genocide was occurring."

Becoming a member of STAND was a way for her to get involved and hopefully make a difference.

"Everything they do is done by students and for the students," said Nolan. "It is very important to get people interested in (participating) at a young age (because) they're more likely to continue it through their lives."

Going to the Boston conference was a way for
Advertisement
her to network with people on the East Coast that she had been e-mailing with since she joined the organization.

In addition, attendees learned how to contact their national legislators and how best to urge them to help resolve the situation in Darfur. Students took workshops not only on how to make those contacts, but also on how to follow through on their phone calls and letters to their legislators.

"We can't let it keep happening."

Sometimes it's hard to get people her age involved in big causes such as preventing genocide because they are involved in so many other activities, especially in Brattleboro, where many students are involved in organizations such as the Child Labor and Education Action Project and Preservation of Our Planet.

Still, said Nolan, "every little bit you tell them, everything they hear about it, the more likely they are to do something."

"The purpose of the conference was to update students on the worsening situation in Darfur so they can go back to their own communities and spread the word and advocate on behalf of appropriate legislation," said Monique Bird, the Midwest Regional Media Coordinator and a member of STAND's national student leadership team.

During the conference, STAND unveiled its latest campaign, which it calls Sudan: The Executive Legacy, a four-part policy framework, urging President George Bush to help end genocide in Darfur during his last year in office.

The framework calls on the president to: Stick to his promises to end the genocide; support the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur financially, diplomatically and logistically; employ a more coordinated, forceful and comprehensive diplomacy with those involved in the Darfur crisis; and lobby China -- a Sudanese diplomatic, financial and political partner -- to encourage the Sudanese government to end the atrocities.

To date, an estimated 400,000 people have been killed in Darfur and more than 2.5 million have been displaced.

"These students could easily have found something else to do for an entire weekend," said Bird. "They gave up their time to learn how to decipher often complex foreign policy, lobby elected officials, fund-raise for civilian protection and raise awareness in their communities -- all in the name of saving countless human lives."

While STAND chapters are formed independently of STAND national they often incorporate many of STAND national's campaigns into their own advocacy techniques, said Bird.

"Some of the students are so passionate about it that it almost becomes a problem," said Bird. "They want to help so much that they have trouble balancing schoolwork with their (advocacy). "

Being involved in STAND gives those students the tools necessary to be effective in advocating for Darfur so that their activities don't interfere with their schoolwork, she said.

Some of the ways the students have found to educate and advocate on behalf of Darfur include: Lobbying congressional representatives to promote support of Darfur legislation; urging state governments and schools to divest from companies that help fund genocide; hosting a Dream for Darfur Olympic Torch Relay to highlight the leverage China has to end the Darfur genocide; using e-mails, Facebook and MySpace to raise money to equip African Union peacekeepers; and utilizing YouTube to ask Presidential Candidates important questions about their stance on Darfur.

The weekend gathering was one in a series of six regional conferences that provided information on the worsening of the genocide in Darfur. The Boston conference had more than 250 students attending from high schools and universities on the East Coast.

"The Northeast is one of the strongest regions in the country for anti-genocide activism," said Scott Warren, STAND Student Director and a student at Brown University in Providence, R.I. "This semester we're uniting to make sure President Bush takes the steps he needs to take to end genocide. So far, he hasn't done enough."