nat'l: Canadian students unite to raise awareness of Darfur
Priya Chaudhury, Excalibur (York University)
TORONTO — In response to the ongoing crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan, a number of Canadian student groups have decided to try and change the situation by forming a coalition called One Sudan.
Jaime Reich, a student representative from York University, said their main goal is to raise awareness through a campaign on campuses across Canada.
“There are atrocities that are happening in other parts of the world that people don’t realise, probably because they are not on front page news everyday. So people forget about them and don’t act when there is plenty that we can do to help people in these situations,” the religious studies student said.
Ben Fine, a student from University of Western Ontario who is one of the organisers of the coalition, said the motivation for the campaign was inspired at a conference of Jewish students, where Acol Dor, a southern Sudanese expatriate, spoke about the ongoing tragedy in Darfur. Dor has dedicated her life to raising awareness in support of change in her country so refugees like her can one day return.
“Following this, one evening, around 35 of us met, as we all felt that we had to do something. So out of that came our first campaign idea to bring green ribbons or bracelets to spread the message, to remind everyone of the lessons of ‘Never again,’ with the recent Holocaust commemoration,” Fine said, referring to the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
“It is to remind our peers that we can’t just commemorate in a vacuum. We need to act to fight the indifference. That is part of our theme to allow those tragedies that took place in the past never to repeat itself,” the engineering student said.
Meredith Herman, a student at McGill University who is organising the coalition with Fine, agrees.
“It is important that everyone be made aware of these atrocities and our primary job is to do just that,” she said.
The three students hope to convince the federal government to take action, through petitions and letter writing.
“We have a national petition signed with over 2,000 signatures in less than two weeks,” Fine said.
Fine commended the Canadian government for its work so far, but noted there is more to do.
“They have been amongst the world’s best in responding to the crisis and addressing it and in keeping it on the agenda,” Fine said.
“Our concrete goal is to push for a motion in the House of Commons,” Herman said.
The coalition has grown from about 35 students to include various student communities from across the country.
“We have representatives from Western, Waterloo, Dalhousie, UBC, etc.,” Fine said. “Our goal is to bring every other organisation on board, including other students from all sorts of backgrounds, as we believe this is a universal issue that concerns all Canadians.” The One Sudan coalition gets most of its funding from the Canadian Federation of Jewish Students, with the rest coming from what each student group at every university has managed to collect on their own.