On Monday night, April 17, the Student Government Association Social Justice Committee hosted a presentation in the Anheuser-Busch Auditorium to promote awareness on the present situation in Darfur.

The primary focus of the event was supposed to be a live panel presentation via Webcast from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Unfortunately, because of technical difficulties originating in Washington, D.C., on the museum’s side, SLU was not able to view the panel until almost 30 minutes into the presentation.

Instead of canceling the session altogether, the SGA SJC took this as an opportunity to educate the fairly large turnout by showing a DVD created by the “Million Voices for Darfur campaign.” This DVD included speakers such as Stephanie Nyombayire, a representative for the Genocide Intervention Network, who spoke at SLU this past fall.

“To know genocide is occurring and to not take action is not acceptable,” Nyombayire said on the DVD.

After finally connecting to the Holocaust Memorial Museum, the audience was able to catch the second half of the panel presentation.

The panel consisted of Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, Ph.D., the founder and chairperson of the Sudan Social Development Organization; Samantha Power, 2003 Pulitzer Prize-winner for her book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide; Ambassador Michael Ranneberger, the senior representative for Sudan at the U.S. Department of State; and Jon Sawyer, the director of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Before beginning his work with the Pulitzer Center, Sawyer worked with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for 31 years.

“How did we allow the Rwanda genocide?” asked Power. “I still don’t get it.”

Because the audience missed the first half of the panel, many students felt a little insecure about their knowledge of the topic, so Danielle Silber and Matt Rysavy quickly offered to hold an impromptu “teach-in” after the panel ended.

In addition, many different student and community groups offered up a variety of opportunities for people to get involved.

Silber works with the St. Louis Save Darfur coalition, bringing together leaders throughout the community to “take a stand as Missourians for the people of Darfur,” Silber said. “The population of the United States is not going to stand silently while genocide occurs in Darfur.”

To learn how to get involved with these groups, visit genocideintervention.net and savedarfur.org.

For more information about Darfur, see the Features Section.