CT Lobby Day for Darfur w/ Mia Farrow

Connecticut Teach Against Genocide (CT-TAG) Lobby Day
Date: February 19, 2008
Times: 9:30 am - 2:00 pm


Teach Against Genocide Lobby Day
WHAT

It's a chance to personally ask your State representatives to support legislation that provides every student with the opportunity to learn about past genocides, so that they will know how to prevent future ones. The day will start with speakers, including Mia Farrow, and training on lobbying for this bill.



WHEN

Tuesday, February 19, 2008, 9:30 AM - 2 PM



WHERE

State Capitol, 210 Capitol Avenue, Hartford, CT



HOW

So that we can schedule your legislative meetings, please RSVP with your name, contact information, district/representatives, and availability, to Danielle Millard at Danielle.Millard@huskymail.uconn.edu. If you cannot attend, please sign the attached petition, and send it to Danielle and it will be given to your representatives during the lobby day.

WHAT IS CT-TAG?

The Connecticut Teach Against Genocide Campaign (CT-TAG) works to pass and help implement legislation to have genocide education included in the curricula of Connecticut secondary schools. The legislation will also appropriate funding to ensure that educators have the necessary training and resources they need to teach this complex subject. For more information, please contact Danielle.

http://www.genocideintervention.net/events/2008/02/19/1447

My Fast For Darfur

Today I observed the fast for Darfur. I only fasted during the morning, because I have to take medication. Having not eaten for only a few hours, it became painfully clear what people who have no food go through. Today’s fast was to protest the lack of security the women in Darfur have received. It’s tragic the number of women who have been raped during this ongoing war.

Rape, hunger, and ultimately death have been the life of Darfur civilians driven from their homes and forced to live in refugee camps.

A citizen in a refugee camp spoke one of the saddest lines I ever heard in a movie. She said, “Soon the white man will come and arrest those that have done these horrible things, and we will be saved.”

The people of Darfur have not lost faith and hope in humanity to come and help them.

Mia Farrow Starts Fund 4 Darfur

Actress/Activist Mia Farrow has started a new fund to help Darfur. The organization, Fund 4 Darfur was started to help aid the over 2.5 million displaced people who depend on humanitarian aid for survival. Specifically, the money donated will be used to help survivors of the Darfur genocide.

Mia Farrow conveyed her dismay over the lack of outrage regarding the situation in Darfur. "One white woman in peril with a teddy bear has captured more media attention than the past three years of our brothers and sisters in the Darfur region," she said. "I look back at what we were doing during the Rwanda situation and in America we were watching the O J Simpson trial."

Good causes will always have to fight for their place in the media spotlight, it’s unfortunate that time and resources are wasted on stories of little relevance, like Brittany Spears, and Paris Hilton.


Thank you Ms. Farrow, it's nice when you hear of someone using their celebrity status for something so worthwhile

George Clooney & Don Cheadle Awarded for Darfur Work

George Clooney and Don Cheadle will receive the Peace Summit Award in December. The award was given based on the work the two actors have done on behalf of Darfur. Both actors can be seen in the film Darfur Now.

It’s nice to see celebrities use their status for something positive. We need more public figures to stand for something, and try to make the world a better place. I urge everyone to see Darfur Now it’s an amazing film.

No Welcome Mat For China in DArfur

China has sent peacekeepers to Darfur, but they are not welcomed according to the rebels. This situation has turned into a quandary. The rebels don’t want China to supply the peacekeepers because they see China as an ally to the government forces who have brutalized their people.

China is the largest buyer of oil in Sudan and their money enables the government to fund their army. Therefore, it’s understandable that the rebels made up of victims of the governments violence, would be skeptical of Chinese peacekeepers. The problem is the government will only allow certain groups into the country.

The government doesn’t want foreigners except China in the country and the rebels don’t want China.

So, it looks like another stalemate.

Waxploitation CD to Benefit Darfur

Waxploitation is releasing Causes 1: Darfur, a collection of 14 songs available on Itunes starting November 27. The music will only be available for 90 days, but may also be purchased in CD form by pre order.

The proceeds (100%) will benefit non-profit organizations, Doctors without Borders, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam America.

The tracklist for the collection:

01. Safer (Exclusive Live Version) - Animal Collective
02. Stay All Night (Exclusive Chulahoma Session) - Black Keys
03. Rhododendrons - Bloc Party
04. Coat Check Dream Song (Exclusive Live Version) - Bright Eyes
05. Wataridori (Exclusive Piano Version) - Cornelius
06. Late Night Shopping (Exclusive Chris Vrenna Remix) - David Sylivan
07. World Shut Your Mouth (Rare Julian Cope Cover) - Death Cab For Cutie
08. Washington Bullets- (International) Noise Conspiracy
09. The Walk (Exclusive Live Version) - The Cure
10. Turn On Me (Exclusive Clint Mansell Remix) - The Shins
11. Rhthm And Soul (Exclusive Middle Version) - Spoon
12. One Day Across The Valley - Teargas abd Plateglass
13. Passing The Stars- Thievery Corporation
14. Gimme Some Truth (Exclusive John Lennon Cover) - Travis
(http://prod1.cmj.com/articles/display_article.php?id=51047325)

For further information visit:
www.waxploitation.com/2007/causes.html

Refugee Camps in Darfur, No Treat

My boys went trick or treating last night, and received way too much candy as usual. We went to the same neighborhood we’ve always went to, the area in which their great grandmother lives. The neighborhood is safe, and their father grew up there everyone knows everyone. There is stability in the lives of my children, and I’m grateful for that.

The children and people of Darfur don’t have that luxury. They were first driven from their homes, and now are being driven from the refugee camps, they have tried to make home. Since 2005, the government has tried to close camps near cities in favor of camps in more remote locations.

"Our biggest fear is that this is going to continue," she said. "Even if it doesn't continue in the next week there is obviously a pattern here. It happens once, there's outcry, they stop trying to move people for a few months, then they try a new method of pressure" (http://voanews.com/english/2007-11-01-voa43.cfm)

Moving Darfur refugees to remote camps is at the least an attempt to break their spirits, and at worse to make it difficult for food and aid to reach the people. It’s sad that there has to be a fight for people to stay in refugee camps.

Darfur, Who Cares?

I post my blog to share information on the ongoing struggle of the people of Darfur. Some days I wonder why I bother, I wonder if anyone is reading, or if anyone cares. I’ve heard, “There are plenty of problems in the US we need to worry about.” “The United States can’t save everyone.”

If I could I’d work to save all the people who suffer in the world, but it’s not possible. What separates the Darfur situation from the countless other tragedies in the world is the magnitude of the brutality.

There are millions of people living in unsafe refugee camps. There have been hundreds of thousands of people killed, and they cannot turn to their government for help.

Who’s responsible for the safety of millions of people?

Peace in Darfur?

“Too many people in Darfur have suffered for too long. Even as we sit here, I keep asking myself, how many more people have to die for us to know that it is the right time to make peace in Darfur.” (DR SALIM AHMED SALIM, The Sudan Tribune)

The peace talks began today, and while the majority forces are not present, the government has declared a cease-fire. Let’s hope the talks will turn to action and the cease-fire will hold. Maybe tonight the people of Darfur can rest in peace.

Hostages Taken in Darfur

After months of pleading with China to use its economic and political influence with Sudan to help the people of Darfur, the pleading has turned into demands. In an unfortunate event, two people have been taken hostage in an attack on an oil field in the Kordofan region.

Darfur rebels have warned all foreign companies that they have a week to get out of the area and stop doing business with Khartoum. Chinese companies are specific targets to the threats. The rebels accuse China of providing the funds that are used to purchase weapons to Khartoum.

Violence has begot violence and the rebels say they are defending the women and children of Darfur who are being murdered by weapons purchased with China’s money.

This is not the solution to ending the violence, and the conditions are getting worse by the hour in Darfur. An intervention is needed and if a peace, agreement is not reached immediately the death toll will rise astronomically.


Click here now to send President Bush and Secretary-General Ban a timely reminder that failure is not an option.

Genocide Survivors At The Olympic Torch Relay

Sunday October 21, 2007 I attended the Olympic Torch Relay in Hartford, CT. Words will do injustice to the emotions I felt listening to the survivors of genocides speak of the horror they survived. There were survivors from past genocides in Rwanda, The Holocaust, Bosnia, Armenia, Sudan, and, Cambodia.

When you listen to their stories you wonder how anyone can stand by and watch as it happens again despite the hollow words of, “never again.”

The people of Darfur are not asking for a handout. The people of Darfur are asking not to be raped, and murdered.

Why won’t anyone protect them???



Visit savedarfur.org for locations of Olympic Torch Relays, and participate if you are fortunate enough to have one in your hometown.

Events for Darfur Come to Connecticut

Author Jane Wells has traveled to Rawanda and Darfur and written several articles for publications including Vogue magazine. Ms. Wells will be speaking in Westport, CT at the Unitarian Church, on Thursday October 18 from 11:30 am-2pm. Gretchen Steidle Wallace will also appear and the two will speak, on "Women Surviving Genocide; Social Entrepreneurship as a path to Recovery."



For more information on the film or other "Days for Darfur", awareness events taking place in Fairfield County, visit www.stamford.ucomm.ued/darfursupport or call 203-329-1919.

In addition, The Devil Came on Horseback will be showing on Monday, Oct. 22, at the Garden Cinema in Norwalk, CT.



Lastly, the Olympic Torch Relay will take place in Hartford, CT on October 21, 2007. The Relay will start at 2pm and will feature Gabriel Bol Deng, Founder and Director of H.O.P.E for Sudan and one of the “Lost Boys” of the Sudan. David Morse, Author and International Activist Survivors of the Holocaust and of the Armenian, Bosnian, Cambodian, and Rwandan genocides, Ian Campbell, Musician, as well as other genocide survivors.

The Torch Relay will be held at Minuteman Park in Hartford, CT 311 Capitol Ave.

(Visit savedarfur.org, select Olympic Torch Relay for more information on the event.)

What does Darfur Mean to You?

What is Darfur?