Same day webcasts begin January 19th at stopgenocidenow.org
Stop Genocide Now’s i-ACT (interactive-
Gabriel Stauring (Redondo Beach, CA) and Katie-Jay Scott (Portland, OR) of Stop Genocide Now are traveling to the border of Sudan and Chad this month for their 4th visit to the camps. Teaming up with Houston Rockets guard, Tracy McGrady, who had previously made a personal visit to the camps, Stop Genocide Now’s i-ACT campaign will help McGrady establish a direct relationship between his high school, Auburndale in Florida, and an individual Darfuri refugee camp to assist in an “attempt to raise millions of dollars to provide relief for millions of displaced citizens in war-torn Darfur” says McGrady.
Stop Genocide Now will also be facilitating the project Tent to Tent, connecting 22 communities from across the nation to 22 refugee families in Chad who have a child trying to pursue secondary education. On this trip Stop Genocide Now will be connecting k-6th grade children from Petaluma, California to refugee children in Farchana, Chad. By mid-2008, innovative technology will allow the groups to communicate through a two-way online interface.
"The idea is to go to the camps on the Darfur/Chad border, talk with the people, show the life in the camps, walk through it with them, and then also present what the aid workers are going though and put it up on a daily basis on our website www.stopgenocidenow.org."
Stop Genocide Now calls this campaign i-ACT which stands for interactive activism.
Since February 2003, people of the Darfur region in Western Sudan have been targeted for ethnic cleansing by the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed, a government-backed miltia. More than 450,000 have been killed and over 3 million are displaced living in refugee camps in Chad or internally displaced person’s camps.
“This is the first time in history that we have called such atrocities genocide while it is still happening; and we have a responsibility to end the violence” said Stauring.
i-ACT seeks to create a larger community impact and deepen the commitment of everyday people to end the genocide in Darfur by putting names and faces to the victims of genocide.. i-ACT is successful in creating personal relationships between those affected by the violence and those who have the ability to help.
i-ACT officially begins on January 19th and team members will be available for interviews from the field during the trip and footage will be made available to media outlets.
www.stopgenocidenow.org
Contact:
Cory Preston
208.870.6578
cory@stopgenocidenow.org
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
