As a connection with the book, Night, that we read earlier this semester, we participated in our school's Darfur Awareness Day. The students worked together in pairs or in 3s to educate the students at Groves during a 45 minute session in between shortened 1st and 2nd hours. The session consisted of a 7 minute video from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Center on Darfur, Sudan and the genocide going on there. Then the Excel guys and gals provided the students with more info and led them through an activity used to test their hidden biases. It was hoped that by being aware of our own hidden biases, we might be able to understand ourselves a little better. Also, we can challenge our government to step up to the plate and get involved in stopping the genocide - if we realize what's holding us back from helping the Sudanese, maybe we can channel our energy in a more positive direction.
Recently, the U.S. Senate unanimously agreed that President Bush should act immediately to stop the genocide going on in Darfur. http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/03/03/sudan.congress.reut/index.html?section=cnn_latest And in late February, President Bush stated that the U.S. and its allies need to take on a larger role for Darfur and hopefully end the genocide. He felt that the U.N. forces needed to be doubled and that a NATO force should also be deployed.
http://www.twincities.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/13902286.htm?source=rss&channel=miamiherald_world
Places where you can speak out and make a difference are:
www.millionvoicesfordarfur.org and www.genocideintervention.net
Thanks.
Geoff Wickersham
2 comments:
I just want to say thank you to everyone in Excel who helped out by leading the awareness day. I know that most of you weren't real big on the idea but it really helped having all of you do it with us. I'm glad to hear that Bush is finally doing something about this since it has been going on for about three years, but I still think there should be a lot more being done. Hopefully he will take more action and in a few years we won't be thinking the same thing we did after Rwanda and other genocides we didn't help stop..."Why didn't we do something sooner?"
I thought that the idea of Darfur Awareness Day was excellent. But it could have been planned out better. The movie was kind of boring and didn't actually show any of the tragedies going on. All we saw was pictures of people who didn't even seem very unhappy, plus a really annoying voiceover from some guy. Then, the activity lost many of the students because they didn't understand the relavance of it to the topic of genocide. Overall, the idea of the day was better than the end result.
jason
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