Darfur, STAND, and Community Building
by Anna BialostoskyI had thought that genocide was a horror of the past before September of 2004, when I heard for the first time about the genocide happening in Darfur, the western region of Sudan. My shock, sadness and anger made me an easy candidate for joining the chapter at my high school, Schenley, of the nationwide student organization Students Taking Action Now: Darfur, or STAND, that my friend Rachel Beck formed. Throughout tenth and eleventh grades, I was a member, guided by Rachel's capable and enthusiastic leadership. Starting in the fall, I will be co-leading STAND with my friends Adrienne Webb and Sophie Date.
Unfortunately, a grave need still exists for STAND and other anti-genocide campaigns. The Darfur genocide began in 2003 when a rebel group in Darfur, left out of gains in a peace agreement ending a civil war in the south, captured an airport in protest. Soon, the Janjaweed, militias sponsored by the Arab-run government, began attacking African villagers in Darfur. They kill and rape innocent civilians and burn homes and crops. So far, 400,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced, many of whom have fled to refugee camps in Chad, Sudan's neighbor to the west. However, the refugee camps provide no safe haven; the situation in Chad has declined so much that some people have fled back to Darfur. The international community has taken no significant action to end the genocide. China and Russia refuse to approve any United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a multilateral force to be sent to Darfur because of their interests in Sudanese oil and weapons. Sudan continues to refuse to accept any UN force that might be sent in. The Abuja peace talks in June led to no real amelioration of the problem. In the past two years, STAND has focused its energies primarily on awareness, but this year that must be combined with a strong focus on political activism to directly urge the United States government and the United Nations to take action.
For the upcoming school year, Schenley STAND has quite a few ideas for projects. In past years STAND has used presentations about the genocide in freshman history classes, bake sales, bracelet and t-shirt sales, door-to-door awareness campaigns, letter-writing and a benefit concert at the local JCC (One Night STAND, run by STAND United Pittsburgh). New projects include encouraging attendance at the Darfur march in New York City at the UN on September 17, a Stop Genocide in Darfur poster contest and awareness project, working towards school board or Pittsburgh-wide divestment from Sudan (research is still being done), and an editorial campaign. Sophie, Adrienne, other STAND members, Pittsburgh STAND chapters, and I have not yet decided which plans to work on. However, one thing is certain: we need to increase and maintain membership by making Schenley STAND more welcoming to students in different grades and of a variety of backgrounds. Although appealing to the outer community is vital to the mission of STAND, the inner community of the club must be strong in order to accomplish its goals.
Building up the STAND community at Schenley will be a challenge. Students are tracked, meaning that you rarely have classes with people outside your level or type of class. As both a magnet school and a neighborhood school, de facto segregation occurs within the tracking system. High-powered tracks are primarily composed of white students while mainstream students are primarily African American. The tracking system makes communication between people of different races, different socioeconomic levels and even different grades minimal and difficult. In the first year of STAND, the club membership base was large and relatively diverse; many people had been inspired to take action by the initial presentations that had been given in every history class. By the end of last year, however, only about ten people regularly came to meetings, and all of them were white, higher-tracked juniors and seniors. Why did this happen? Perhaps the shock people felt at learning about Darfur had worn off. Meetings were held during a lunch period, so many people who wanted to come were unable to do so. Finally, the communication between people of different tracks necessary to make STAND a thriving organization was hard to facilitate.
The revitalization of Schenley STAND has been an important issue for Adrienne, Sophie, and me. Several logistic solutions seem promising. If meetings are held after school, then people with all lunches will be able to attend. Many students who have shown interest in joining do not have email addresses, so we plan to use a bulletin board at the entrance to school for announcements. We think that other possible remedies may prove to be even more effective, especially for keeping new and current members involved. Although the genocide in Darfur is clearly a crisis that requires serious action and attention, combating it cannot always be done with all its gravity pressing on everyone's hearts. We hope to nurture an environment where having fun is a regular occurrence. As well as discussing the current situation in Sudan and any projects in progress, getting to know other members well and, of course, eating food are a couple things which will become important parts of meetings. Feeling a connection with the people working alongside you is so important to maintaining a committment to a cause. Lastly, we hope that by giving STAND members leadership positions, they will feel that they are truly helping the people of Darfur. This sense of accomplishment makes the small steps taken when working towards a goal, even one with the enormous magnitude of ending a genocide, seem important.
I know that meeting our goals for STAND in this year will be extremely challenging. Many obstacles will present themselves, but the sense of determination, responsibility and the passion we feel for stopping the genocide in Darfur will help us persevere.
Anna Bialostosky is a senior at Schenley High School and also an active member of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Pittsburgh’s youth group, as well as a YAC Youth Adult Committee (YAC) member in the Ohio-Meadville District.
For more information contact youth @ uua.org.
Last updated on Saturday, April 19, 2008.
