Students ‘die’ to bring awareness to Darfur

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has called it a “little short of hell on earth.” The United States Congress labels it genocide. Up to 400,000 people have died in Darfur, Sudan, since February 2003. More than 2.5 million have been driven from their homes.

Two GCSU organizations, STAND and Art as an Agent for Change, held events to raise money and awareness about Darfur this month. April 9-13, STAND held Darfur Awareness Week. The acronym stands for A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition and it is an umbrella organization of over 600 high school and college chapters devoted to stopping genocide, particularly the ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan, according to their Web site.
Valerie Blum, a junior history major, established a chapter of STAND at GCSU this semester. She said she saw students interested about Darfur when she assisted Dr. Hingson at a Global Democracy Teach-In about it.
“Most of the people did not really know what was going on, but there was a good amount of people who wanted to help,” Blum said. “I chose STAND because the national and regional coordinators keep close contact with their chapters, and it’s solely a student organization.”
STAND does things to spread awareness about the condition.
“What we do is increase consciousness about genocides and the ones that may come up,” Blum said. “We push legislation to our senators and representatives, and coordinate national efforts to help the cause of this country.”
Two of the week’s events included a movie viewing on Monday, April 9, and a die-in on April 11, on Front Campus.
“We chose to have the viewing of ‘Darfur Diaries’ on Monday night because people did not have a perspective of what was going on and this documentary really helped the students draw a better picture of what was really happening,” Blum said.
Blum went to a national conference and one of the suggestions they had for events was a die-in.
“When I heard about a die-in, I became instantly interested,” Blum said. “The group started soon after the conference, and I suggested it early on. All we had to do was set a date.”
She said the die-in was just like the sit-ins that were held while protesting the Vietnam War.
“The die-in had students lying on the ground in a concentrated area to not only draw attention, like those Truth commercials, but also to educate other students in GCSU and show then how they can put this genocide into perspective,” Blum said.
On April 18 and 19 in Peabody Auditorium, A.A.C. held a poetry slam called “A Mic-Stand for Darfur.”
Paul Grigsby, a junior creative writing major, and creator of the show said he has wanted to aid in the Darfur situation  since he heard about it.
“The efforts of other groups like STAND and the Leadership Certificate Program catalyzed my efforts as well, because I wanted to take part in their drive to promote awareness about the situation,” Grigsby said.
The show featured poetry and music by various GCSU students and donations from it will go to UNICEF Children’s Emergency Relief Fund for Darfur. At the end of the show, students were provided with a list of their congressmen so they can write letters to their representatives.
Tavias Bennett, a sophomore history major and participant said he got involved with the show to spread knowledge about the situation.
“I feel like people turn a blind eye to a lot of things that happen in Africa,” Bennett said. “I think people are now seeing that what is now happening in Africa is a direct influence of what happened in the past (colonialism). They see now we should find a way to change it. I’m speaking out to try and change (it).”
Creative writing major and participant Joey Hall said he is involved to spread awareness about this issue as well.
“Most people, if they even know of the Rwandan genocide, like to think that’s the last genocide that ever happened,” Hall said.
He said that while Hitler and the Holocaust was a tragic circumstance, we should have learned something from it.
“We didn’t really learn from that if we’re allowing it to happen today in other countries,” Hall said.
Grigsby said he wanted people to take away from his show that they can do something and make a change.
“I’m concerned because I feel like an injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere,” Grigsby said. “Students should be concerned because if we let this happen and say nothing somewhere else, it could very well happen here.”
For more information on how to get involved, contact STAND president, Blum, at vblum@standnow.org or founder of A.A.C., Grigsby at aac_gcsu@yahoo.com.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 20 2007. Filed under Perspectives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry