Las Vegas Resident Receives Prestigious Anti-genocide Fellowship

Feb. 6, 2010 - PRLog -- WASHINGTON, D.C. – Genocide Intervention Network today announced that Las Vegas local Corey Dragge has been named a Carl Wilkens Fellow. This unique fellowship recognizes community leaders who possess the commitment to fight genocide and the potential to make a difference in the lives of people in Darfur, Burma and other areas around the world. Launched this year, the fellowship will provide Dragge with advocacy training, access to experts and an organizing grant.

Corey Dragge is the founder of a grassroots Darfur activist group called Champion Darfur. While using his website to educate people about the crisis in Darfur and to create a virtual community of engaged citizen activists on the West Coast, Dragge has worked on the ground with STAND (the student-led division of Genocide Intervention Network) chapters in the San Francisco Bay area and in Las Vegas, Nevada. He recently organized a rally in front of the Federal Building in downtown Las Vegas, an event so successful that Champion Darfur received an invitation to meet the foreign affairs advisors for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Dragge plans to use his Carl Wilkens Fellowship to develop a more robust anti-genocide movement within Las Vegas and across Nevada.
The Carl Wilkens Fellowship was named in honor of Carl Wilkens. Carl Wilkens was the only American to stay in Rwanda through the entirety of the Rwandan genocide. Despite warnings from the American embassy, Carl risked his life and stayed in Rwanda to try to help the people he had come to know and love there.

Carl Wilkens said, “Change begins with one. So few people in America were aware of the Rwanda genocide at the time it was happening, and even fewer were equipped to do something to end it. That’s why I'm so excited that Corey Dragge has been selected to join this year's class of Carl Wilkens Fellows. I know he will be a lifelong leader in the movement to end genocide.”

About Genocide Intervention Network – Genocide Intervention Network empowers individuals and communities with the tools to prevent and stop genocide. Currently focused on conflicts in Sudan, Burma and Democratic Republic of Congo, among other areas of concern, Genocide Intervention Network envisions a world in which the global community is willing and able to protect civilians from genocide and mass atrocities.  The organization is building a permanent anti-genocide constituency, mobilizing the political will to prevent and stop genocide. For more information, please visit www.genocideintervention.net.

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About Champion Darfur: A organization dedicated to the education of the international community about the atrocities taking place in the Darfur region of Sudan, Africa and what they can do to help bring peace to Darfur.