Our lives in the digital age have revolved around electronics for quite awhile. But our dependence on our laptops, mp3 players, and cell phones may be fueling the deadliest conflict globally since World War II: the violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
You can still set up a lobby meeting with one of your members of Congress as part of the Darfur From Day One Campaign! Although President Obama has appointed a special envoy for Sudan, a lot remains to be done. We need to ensure that President Obama is working as hard as he can to reverse the expulsion of the aid groups, and to complete the Sudan policy review. Email advocacy@standnow.org if you’d like to set up a lobby meeting with your member of Congress.
In this week’s issue: New special envoy Sudan Scott Gration takes his first trip to Sudan, Sudanese elections are postponed, and U.N Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon calls for international support of a peace deal in Congo.
Questions? Feedback? Contact STAND’s Education Team at education@standnow.org or leave a comment!
If you’re a regular reader of the STAND Blog, if you get our action alerts and newsletters, or if you’re in contact with your Outreach Coordinator, then chances are you’ve already heard a lot about some of the amazing positions STAND is offering to students next year. The reason we just won’t shut up about these positions is that the STAND Student Leadership Team is committed to passing the torch to an even stronger group of leaders next year.
April 4th marks one month since Omar al-Bashir, the wanted president of Sudan, suspended the licenses of 13 international aid groups and 3 local ones, forcing them to abandon their work in Darfur.
Between March 23rd to April 1st, three Darfur activists will be in Chad as part of i-ACT 7. Interactive-ACTivism is a project of Stop Genocide Now, “a grassroots community dedicated to working to protect populations in grave danger of violence, death and displacement resulting from genocide.” They sent their first i-ACT trip to the Chad/Darfur border in November 2005, and have sent six other trips to the area since.
In this week’s issue: the Arab League rolls out the red carpet for Bashir, reports reveal atrocities committed by rebels in eastern Burma, and a former rebel group makes peace with the government in DRC.
Featured: President Obama talks tough on Sudan after a meeting with Darfur activists today.
I had a feeling I’d found my dream "job" when I found myself waking up every morning, excited to check my STAND email inbox before even getting up to eat breakfast. I knew for sure I’d found it when I realized it was almost time to graduate and, accordingly, pass on the torch to another STAND student, and I felt more than a touch of sadness at the prospect of leaving.
In this week’s issue: Darfuris continue to suffer as Khartoum refuses to re-admit aid organizations into the country, the US appoints a Special Envoy for Sudan, and retaliatory violence by LRA and FDLR militias continues in eastern Congo
Featured: Check out this powerful op-ed by Mohamed Sulieman, a Darfuri living in the San Francisco Bay Area, on the expulsion of aid groups from Darfur.
For years now, we have been letting the genocide in Darfur slip from crisis into a state of permanent chaos, we have waited as the camps for the displaced settle silently into the sand and transform into villages, and we have allowed children to be born, raised, and sometimes die in states of malnourishment and fear.
For some of us who have been talking about the Darfur genocide for 5 years now, it is almost as if this has become normal.
