Policy experts can help students finish their homework

Student activists are busy. Student activists who want to be effective don't have time to do their homework or pass classes. Just ask our parents, the friends we never see, or look for the computer attached to our hips.

The student movement, however, is finding an increasing amount of support from policy experts. In spring 2006, STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition merged with the Genocide Intervention Network, and now students, with the guidance of policy experts and resources in Washington, D.C., can focus on implementation, bringing a more unified policy ask to the grassroots student contituency.

Today, ENOUGH: the project to abolish genocide + mass atrocities, with GI-NET and STAND, hosted its first activist conference call featuring ENOUGH Policy Advisor Colin Thomas-Jensen, Advocacy Director Cory Smith, and GI-NET Membership Associate Colin Christensen. Moderated by Lisa Rogoff, the call provided information for student activists about the current situation on the ground in Darfur, an advocacy update, and guidance for activist campaigning.

These calls can support students, who must balance school with Darfur activism and policy research.

The ENOUGH website will soon post a summary and record of the call. Why are these calls such an important tool? This is information we, the public, are deprived of, with the exception of the occasional blurb from the press. It's the information students and activists are seeking in their quest to decide how best to turn action into effective, educated action.

Can/should streamlined information help to focus and unify the Darfur movement?

I just spent the two days at Campus Camp Wellstone, an awesome student activist training camp that teaches the grassroots organizing strategies of Paul Wellstone (the coolest senator ever) and I am pumped to start using what I learned! The camp is geared toward political activists tackling a range of issues from Electoral College reform to the Obama campaign to fair trade to Darfur and focuses on running an effective campaign and effective community organizing. We spent a lot of time talking about the message of a campaign. The message is essentially what we want our audience to know. How do we build an effective message? How do we convey it to our voters or audience? I told one of the trainers afterward that I had found what we had learned helpful, but I still wasn't sure how to apply it to my work with STAND. I said that I do not think that "End genocide" or "Save Darfur" are good messages--although they are useful slogans for conveying our larger, long-term goal--because they are too vague and, let's face it, ending genocide sounds pretty unattainable.
"Well, what is it that you want students to get out of your message?" he asked.
"I guess we want them to see that yes, this is a huge issue, and very complex, but they really can make a difference," I answered, thinking out loud.
"Exactly," he said. "Action is your message. Tell them that by writing this letter or signing this postcard, they can have a tangible impact on ending the genocide."
The message that students can have an impact on state government and foreign policy is central to increasing the level of student advocacy to save Darfur, which Elizabeth blogged about a few weeks ago.

So, how am I going to use this newly-created message? On Thursday, the University of Minnesota STAND will table, but we'll do it differently than we've ever done before. We'll stand in front of the table instead of just sitting behind it, so we better actively engage in our unsuspecting advocates, and tell them they can make a difference, they can end genocide, by writing to their representatives in the Minnesota legislature, who need a little encouragement before they vote to divest Sudan.

Stand up and educate!

Activists are beginning to look beyond Darfur and realize that education may be our most powerful mechanism for developing permanent genocide prevention. The Genocide Education Task Force, a STAND initiative, calls for state legislation to mandate genocide education. Props to STAND for recognizing that education is the key. Now it's time to get more educators on board at the grassroots level - this is where students come in.

I wholeheartedly support genocide education. Something makes me nervous, however. Meet the worksheet.

Here's what some teachers might to do teach genocide.
Question 1: Who were the main actors in the genocide?
Question 2: Darfur is a ________ of Sudan. (Are you confused at what to insert in the blank? Yes, these worksheets are vague and confusing. I'm not giving you the answer).
Question 3: _______ civilians have been killed.
Question 4: _______ have been displaced.
Question 5: Another genocide in Africa happened ten years earlier in the country of:______

Are you bored yet? I am. Perhaps the greatest success in the Darfur student movement is the passion with which students approach genocide prevention. I don't want busy teachers sucking the relevance out of genocide with dry worksheets in order to fulfill state mandated curriculum requirements. I want these teachers to care.

A student at Lake Forest College started a group called Students Educating Students. The idea is this: students use their unique experiences to provide authentic education for other students about issues that are important to them.

It's time for students to take education into their own hands at the grassroots level. It's time for educators to create lessons on genocide that motivate passion, action, and academic integrity.

Personal Introduction

Hello everyone. Before I get started on writing my first entry to this blog, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Christopher Tuckwood and I am in my fourth year at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Here I am majoring in Medieval Studies with a minor in Jewish Studies. Genocide prevention is something which I’ve been interested in for quite a long time now and I have been active in doing Darfur advocacy for three years now, since I organized my first fundraiser in early 2004. Since then, I have founded a chapter of Students Taking Action Now: Darfur (STAND) Canada on my campus, and also founded and acted as president of the Genocide Action Group at my university, which has over two hundred members. We have been quite active in raising both money and awareness by hosting film showings, guest speakers, conferences, and getting as much attention as possible in our local media, which is the best tool for raising awareness.

Now, I am a proud member of the USHMM Student Genocide Prevention Board (also the sole Canadian member) and will be regularly contributing to this blog. The topics on which I will be writing are varied, but I will mostly be focusing on Darfur and Bosnia, while also contributing to any discussion on the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and other relevant international law. Rwanda is another particular area of interest and “expertise” of mine.

Genocide is the greatest of all evils which human beings commit against each other. It is not a strictly past historical phenomenon, it is not something limited to one part of the world, and it is not something which can be easily ended, particularly due to the apathy of the international community and powerful governments. As Samantha Power has stated, we live in the “Age of Genocide” and the movement to end and prevent it is the premier moral imperative of our time. Ultimately, saving real lives is our first goal. Just trying is never enough and we must constantly seek out the most effective ways to actually accomplish real solutions. Even if success is often elusive or not achieved in the short-term, our efforts do have significance. Those who struggle against the perpetrators of genocide can at least stand up and be counted as refusing to remain silent - as so many others have - in the face of this ultimate evil.

Hannah's Introduction

Hi! I would also like to introduce myself before posting my first blog.

I'm Hannah Baldwin and a sophomore at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in January. Previously, I attended St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, where I was an active member of Amnesty International. I plan on starting a chapter of STAND in January and planning awareness-raising and advocacy events on campus. My goal is to raise $400,000 for Darfur, one dollar for every person who has died, and increase advocacy among students at the University of Minnesota.

I am thrilled to be working as a member of the Holocaust Museum's Committee on Conscience Student Genocide Prevention Board. In this blog I will be posting about the genocide in Darfur, Sudan and human rights issues throughout West Africa.