STAND Camp Day Two
By Regional Organizer Kaelee Krege
The Pearlstone resort and its animals wake early and so does STAND Camp. The first official morning starts off with some eggs and some strategy. We planned our own campaign for Congressman Naseby (he’s not real, in case you were just about to google him) in order to protect Social Security, just as a warm up to the real planning for Sudan and Genocide Prevention legislation. Up to our ears in tactics and targets, we learned how effective this group of Core Chapter Leaders (CCLs) is going to be. Seriously, these students are organizing/campaigning rock stars. In the meantime, team spirit was flying around the room and all over Twitter. Student donned orange, green, silver, pink, red, and purple sunglasses to indicate which team they represented, but we started seeing alliance teams pop up like team magenta and team watermelon – still waiting for team murky brown. The #sc2011 (please tweet at us!) feed was literally exploding with team pride, making our live twitter feed pretty interesting (not that it’s not always interesting).
Power-mapping was a nice way to for all of us to see what resources are right under our noses and why making coalitions are so powerful in organizing AND amplifying. We spent lunch strategizing our team’s challenge (which you’ll hear more about tomorrow) and got geared up for the afternoon, because it was pretty grand. For some it started with an epic zip line ride through the forest and for others it was a session with Erin Mazursky, former STAND Student Director, who brought some great advice and helped us figure out how to make change on a small scale have large impacts nationwide.
Photo credit: Martha Bixby, GI-NET/SDC
After a delicious meal, we all gathered around the campfire ready to listen and engage with Niemat Ahmadi, an inspirational woman from the Sudanese diaspora who came and spoke with us about every topic our group could come up with. It was just as the sun was setting and night was settling over the landscape, that STAND met a woman who made it her life’s mission to save the people of her country. The last question to her was “how do you keep going?” and her answer was “you”. This alone keeps me going in this movement, and the s’mores afterword weren’t bad either. More tomorrow!