USU students trying to stop Darfur conflict
Editor’s note: This is the second part in a two-part series about the conflict some have termed genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan and how students at USU can help. The first part ran Nov. 13.
USU senior Jessica Hadfield wanted to help the people in Darfur. But she didn’t know where to start.
She said she stumbled across a Web site dedicated the current conflict in Darfur near the beginning of this semester. At first, she just moved on because she said it didn’t seem real.
But then she saw an article in a magazine and it all struck home for her.
“I felt really terrible that this has been occurring and I had been oblivious to it,” she said. “I thought something needed to be done and I figured USU students would be my best source of help.”
She began researching the topic and wanted to find ways to help. She said she decided the best way to begin helping the people that had been displaced from Darfur was to raise awareness because she felt a lot of people didn’t know what was going on.
“I really didn’t know anyone else who was aware of this and felt strongly about it,” She said. “What I just want to do is help the displaced civilians, and I didn’t know anyone else who wants to get really involved.”
She didn’t know that Dave Thompson, a USU senior, started researching this volatile region in the western part of Sudan. He said he didn’t know a lot about Darfur when he decided to start STAND. Really, all he said he could remember was reading an article several years ago about the civil war that was affecting the rest of the country, but it wasn’t something he kept thinking about. Now it is something different.
But when he saw a message from Save Darfur and a bulletin posted on www.myspace.com about STAND – a student anti-genocide coalition – he didn’t want to ignore it.
Since then, he said he’s learned a lot about this western region of the African country, and he wants USU students to learn more about it too. Because, he said, it’s time to care.
“It seems like we always care after it’s over. When “Hotel Rwanda” came out everybody cared, but it was 10 years too late,” he said. “I care because I hate to see innocent people suffer. And it seems like there are a lot of people who would care for the same reason.”
This theory seems to be proving true. Thompson only started to think about organizing the club about two months ago. Since then, he’s said the organization has taken off, almost too fast for him to keep up with. He said the club got a huge boost in membership when they decided to start meeting with Amnesty International.
Although neither club has had an official meeting or event, Thompson estimates that they have nearly 100 members between the two organizations and he hopes that number will keep growing.
After about a year-long hiatus, USU student Ashley Linford and a couple friends decided to restart Amnesty International because she said they felt they could make a difference by organizing.
“There’s power in numbers,” said Linford, whose chapter of Amnesty International, with a little more than 20 members, has only been meeting for about four weeks. “It’s better to have one direction.”
A chapter of Amnesty existed last year but dissolved after some of its leading members graduated. One of group’s members from last year, Dani Babbel, is involved in the group’s current resurrection. Babbel, a sophomore in geography and anthropology, said she believes no one is really opposed to groups like this, but many may not know they exist or think they can’t really make a difference.
But, Thompson said, now people can make a difference and he thinks, much like Hadfield, that they want to, but just don’t know where to start.
“This is an area where we could actually do something … This is an opportunity where people can get involved and help in their own little way,” he said. “What matters to me is that some force or something happens in Darfur to stabilize the region so people can get back to living their lives the way they did before this situation.”
Amnesty is focusing its current efforts on an awareness campaign and is combining members and resources with STAND to do that. Along with getting T-shirts from STAND, Amnesty members have designed their own T-shirt they will sell to raise money to support the humanitarian effort overseas.
So far, the local Amnesty chapter has planned to open a specific Logan for Darfur bank account to deposit all funds they will raise. Linford says they will do this so they know where their contributions are going. Linford said some non-profit organizations spend too much funding on administrative costs and she would like to be able to monitor the impact of their efforts as much as possible. Their funds may also be used for a future humanitarian trip to the disheveled area.
“There’s a difference of giving money and seeing benefits,” said Linford.
Thompson said all STAND wants to do is raise money to send to the refugees. None of the money, he said, will go to anyone in the organization. No one is making any money from this, he said, they’re just doing it because they feel it’s the right thing to do.
And, he said he thinks people out there will help once they realize they have the opportunity.
“We’re just trying to provide [students] an opportunity to help in their own little way,” he said. “Sometimes they just don’t feel like they have the option to help, [but] when people are given the opportunity to help, they will.”