Dying for Darfur:
Silent protest stirs emotion, provokes thought
By Katrina Cessna
Issue date: 11/29/07 Section: News
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Rand Nashi, a member of MASSPIRG working on the Save Darfur campaign, explained that her group came up with the idea of staging yesterday's "die-in" collectively during one of their previous meetings.
Nashi, 18, is a freshman at UMass and organized the die-in, which she described as a symbolic gesture.
"We want to meet our goal of representing .01 percent of the 400,000 who have been killed so far; we want 400 people to come lay on the lawn today so we can demonstrate what a mere .01 percent looks like," she said.
"The word simply isn't getting out," Nashi explained. She went on to describe the strategy of the rather morbid "silent protest" as being primarily "to catch their [students'] eye, then to educate them, and finally, to fundraise."
Stephanie Aines, 21, is a senior at UMass and is the Massachusetts Outreach Coordinator for the national Student Anti-Genocide Coalition known as STAND. The local MASSPIRG Save Darfur campaign is coordinating their next fundraiser, DarfurFAST, with STAND.
The purpose of the fast event, scheduled for Dec. 5, is to encourage students to give up a small luxury they enjoy for only one day, and to donate the money they would have spent on that luxury to one of the collection centers that will be located on campus that day.
MASSPIRG member Robert Weed, 19, is a sophomore at UMass who participated in yesterday's die-in. He explained that what you give up for the day can be anything, but should be something you truly enjoy. When asked what he plans to give up on December 5th, Weed grimaced.
"I can easily give up meals," he explained. "But as a symbol, I'm going to have to give up my one true vice - cigarettes."
Aines said that the fast fundraising goal for UMass is $10,000 this year. According to Aines, the money raised will be donated to the Genocide Intervention Network (GIN), a global non-profit organization.
GIN will invest the proceeds in three things: more efficient woodstoves, fostering marketable income-generating activities such as raising livestock and funding firewood patrols, sometimes led by members of U.N. Peacekeeping Forces, to accompany women when leaving the camps.
Aines explained that all of these things can be provided at a relatively low cost, even for a college student.
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