Chapters

Guest post by Gabi Arons and Nicole DeChello, Amnity High School

Nicole and Gabi here. We're Amity High School’s Canvass leaders in Woodbridge, CT.

After the Pledge2Protect Conference, we were so inspired to head the canvass at our school, so we got right to work. Three very long weeks later, December 1st finally came. We had planned for Amity STAND club members to go into every classroom (therefore talking to EVERY student at Amity) and tell students about the National Canvass and ask them to sign pledges.

Today, we kicked off the Pledge2Protect canvass. In cooperation with the Genocide Intervention Network and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, we are asking people across the country to take the pledge to prevent genocide.

To do this, chapters are holding awesome events throughout this week to educate about the ongoing conflicts and motivate people to take action. Not only this, but they are using these events as a chance to collect pledges from the attendees.

Andrew Hedlund at Arizona State just published a great article in ASU’s State Press about the role of minerals in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo and current legislation to address it. Read on to learn more and find out how you can take action. 

Financing a calamity with a vibrating cell phone

Andrew Hedlund
Monday, November 23, 2009

The Democratic Republic of the Congo houses an incredibly violent and heart-wrenching conflict.

Massachusetts students took their call for genocide education to the Massachusetts State House in Boston on Tuesday.  Several students - including MacKenzie Hamilton and Andie Ramirez of Harwich High and Emily Cunningham of Cardinal Spellman (and last year's Northeast High School Regional Outreach Coordinator) - testified before the Joint Committee on Education.  Before testifying, Emily and the members of Harwich STAND lobbied Senator O'Leary of the Committee, and over 30 people joined them at the Committee hearing to show support for the bill.

Like many of you, we've been pretty busy over the past 100 days at Stanford STAND. So for our Day 100 event we wanted to highlight what our community has been doing to push for change in Darfur in contrast with the Obama Administration has done in the same amount of time.

I know being on the STAND leadership team can seem quite intimidating, but for me it has been one of the best experiences of my life! The leadership team is full of AMAZING people, many of whom will turn out to be your new best friends. Apart from just meeting really really cool people, the leadership team also has great resources that you can use for your own chapter.

I am asked all the time when I think is the best time to start a chapter. My answer is always the same: now. No matter when it is, it’s an important time to take a stand against genocide. This important time in American history is no exception. Experts are saying that young people will be going out to the polls to vote in record numbers, but we shouldn’t let our participation end there. Whether or not you are able to vote in the upcoming election it doesn’t matter because voting is only the first step.

We all watched the foreign policy-focused Presidential debate at Ole Miss, but one high school STAND chapter went to the center of the action. Check out this post from Elly Jackson of St. Andrew's Episcopal School.

WRock for Darfur was a benefit event combining the anti-genocide movement and Harry Potter fandom to raise funds for and awareness of the refugees of Darfur, hosted by the JUUstice LeagUUe of Poughkeepsie who are a chapter of both STAND and the Harry Potter Alliance.

Last weekend, I attended a retreat meant to train me to be a well-equipped State Outreach Coordinator for Texas! I met some of the funniest, most intelligent people that you will ever meet. But as fellow STANDERs you know we are all pretty much the epitome of kick ass! I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am to kick the year off! Being around so many people as passionate about establishing a constituency of individuals that will no longer allow genocide to take place anywhere in the world is extremely inspirational.