After seeing the film “Hotel Rwanda,” Althea Thomas wanted to do something to help the situation in Darfur, Sudan. Thomas, who graduated from Northwestern in 1989, had to complete a volunteering project for her leadership class and decided to work with NU students to form the Darfur Project.
The project is lobbying the U.S. government to act against the genocide that has killed 300,000 to 400,000 people in Darfur since February 2003. About 2 million refugees have come out of the Darfur conflict.
“We’re just ordinary people who want to have our voices heard,” said Thomas. “We’re not experts but that’s what this effort is about.”
The Darfur Project, a group of seven NU students, is working with other campus organizations, including the African Students Association and NU Darfur Action Coalition, to bring awareness of the crisis in Darfur. Through a letter-writing campaign, the group will press the U.S. government to take a stronger stand.
The NU Darfur Action Coalition works mainly with NU students, but the Darfur Project is also going to high schools in the Chicago area to raise awareness of the conflict.
Monica Bieniewski said the group is hosting many events, starting with a letter-writing petition at an A&O Productions showing of “Hotel Rwanda,” so as many students as possible can be made aware of Darfur.
“The main idea is to continue pushing it,” said Bieniewski, a Weinberg sophomore who helped found the group. “It’s not something you can do just once.”
On Tuesday about 30 people attended “Take a Stand Against Sudan,” co-sponsored by the African Students Association. The event brought Sudanese refugee Gabriel Akoon and Akenji Ndumu of Africa Action, a lobbying group that lobbies for U.S. policy to help Africa.
Akoon and Ndumu described the conflict as a religious and ethnic conflict that has affected all of Darfur. Ndumu said former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell declared Sudan a genocide in September 2004 but the Bush administration has since “back-tracked” by not offering any troops to Sudan. He said the African Union has given 2,700 “monitoring observation force” troops, but bringing lasting peace to Darfur requires non-African countries to contribute to the 20,000 to 50,000 troops needed.
“This is endemic of how the world approaches African problems,” Ndumu said. “But genocide is not an African problem. It’s an international problem that needs an international response.”
Ndumu said Americans need to put pressure on their lawmakers and noted that the crisis in Rwanda more than a decade ago shows the importance of taking action.
“During Rwanda, we were watching O.J. and now with Darfur we’re watching Michael Jackson,” Ndumu said. “When a genocide occurs, everyone is responsible.”
After the speakers finished, students were asked to sign letters and a petition. The Darfur Project will mail the letters to congressmen.
Ashley Bryant, a Weinberg sophomore and a founder of the Darfur Project, said she doesn’t know if the letter-writing campaign will influence politicians’ actions, but she thinks the crisis is too important to be ignored.
“We can never know if it can make a difference or not,” she said,
“but how can we not try?”
Reach Diana Scholl at [email protected].
