Millions of people native to the Darfur region of Sudan live today in refugee camps, while thousands of others have been killed or are on the run to avoid danger. On Tuesday, Nov. 6, Saint Louis University will host some of these Darfuri refugees as they pass through St. Louis on a national speaking tour about living in war-torn Darfur.
“Voices From Darfur: Personal Stories of a Genocide” will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the St. Louis Room of the Busch Student Center. A key sponsor of the event, Gitana Productions, Inc., along with the American Friends Service Committee, will also put on a play about the conflict, which will be held later this year at SLU.
Gitana and AFSC have partnered with SLU OneWorld, a student organization that promotes social justice and cultural awareness, to bring these programs closer to a University audience. Amanda Ring-Rissler, president of OneWorld, said she hopes that “Voices From Darfur” will bring the reality of the conflict in Africa to the forefront of students’ minds.
“Often, we are able to write it off . as something that is out of our sight, out of our mind,” said Ring-Rissler. “These one-on-one stories are really vital . [and] being able to link the conflict to something visually is really important.”
Gitana is a St. Louis-based nonprofit organization that “provides global healing through arts and education,” according to its official website. “Voices From Darfur” is the educational component of Gitana’s major project this year, which focuses on the civil war in Darfur.
The play, “Complacency of Silence: Darfur,” will held in the spring, as a fine-arts counterpart to the Nov. 6 event.
Cecilia Nedal, founder and president of Gitana, said that she hopes these events, focused on Darfur, will bring a more individual-based focus to the Darfur conflict, and “present the people as people.”
“[An event like this] provides a balance between looking at the statistics and identifying who these people are . we need to feel for the people themselves.”
“Voices From Darfur” will feature personal stories offered by Darfuri refugees; among them will be Daoud Hari, one of few Sudanese granted “political refugee” status in the United States this year, according to The New York Times.
Hari, who fled his home in 2003, under siege by the Sudanese national janjaweed military, returned to the conflict region multiple times in the years after, to translate for journalists from outlets such as the Times, the Chicago Tribune and the BBC, to help them write stories about the Darfur conflict.
“They needed someone who knew English, someone from Darfur, someone who knew how to be safe,” Hari said during a talk at Lehigh University in September, according the Lehigh News Center online.
In addition to the speakers, Ring-Rissler said that “Voices From Darfur” will include a short documentary film and discussion entitled “Life Before Debt in Africa”; a performance of African-inspired music by Ngoma Group; and a “refugee-style meal.” Also, she said, OneWorld and other social justice and human rights organizations will offer supplemental information about the Darfur conflict.
“You’ll be there, and you’ll listen, but you’ll also have the opportunity to be involved,” Ring-Rissler said.
Other organizations that have helped to promote the event at are SLU’s Political Science department, the St. Louis Save Darfur Coalition and the Cultural Center of SLU.
The full-length play, produced by Gitana, “Complacency of Silence,” was written by adjunct professor at SLU and Washington University, Lee Patton Chiles, using interviews of Darfuri refugees. Chiles also directed the play, which will show from May 23 to June 8, 2008, at the Saint Louis University Theater.
