Guest post by Jenn Polish, Queens College STAND
Good music, good company, a dance floor, and – oh yeah – awareness raising, fundraising, and pledging against genocide – made for an AMAZING night at Queens College in Flushing, New York. What we’ve lovingly dubbed our Peace Jam was held the night of Thursday December 3rd in the fourth floor ballroom of our Student Union Building from 6 to 10 PM.
In case you missed today’s hearing in the House Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health – which included US Special Envoy General Scott Gration’s first testimony before Congress since the release of the administration’s Sudan policy – we’ve put together some highlights and a wrap-up of blogs, commentary, and news coverage.
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.
A weekly summary of the most important developments in the conflicts we see on the ground in Burma, Congo, Sudan, and beyond:
The Fall 2009 Pledge2Protect conference held in Washington DC was off the hook; I have never been more proud of STAND. I was able to understand so much material, digest many perspectives and in the end left very educated, challenged and encouraged.
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.
From December 1-7, we’re asking thousands of people across the country to pledge to prevent genocide. But after the Pledge2Protect conference in early November, dozens of participants hit the streets to start collecting pledges. Vinay Nayak, a high school student in Illinois and the Great Lakes Regional Outreach Coordinator, blogged about his experience:
Yesterday, Representatives Jim McDermott (D-WA), Frank Wolf (R-VA), and Barney Frank (D-MA), introduced the Conflict Minerals Trade Act (H.R. 4128). If passed into law, the bill would help increase transparency in industries – i.e. the electronics industry – that are major consumers of minerals whose illegal trade is fueling ongoing conflict in eastern DR Congo.
