How to Help
Want to know more about Darfur? Want to help raise money and awareness in your town? Here is a list of things that you can do to help:
Ten Things You Can Do Right Now
From Genocide Intervention Network
- Join the Genocide Intervention Network because you care deeply about protecting civilians from genocide, and GI-Net can help you translate that caring into effective action. GI-Net is not just a handful of lobbyists pleading with leaders, but rather a movement of concerned citizens whose actions and electoral influence matter: we are building the first-ever permanent anti-genocide constituency!
- Support the African Union peacekeepers in Darfur by contributing to the Genocide Intervention Network. More than half of your donation to the fund will go directly to supporting civilian protection in Darfur. The remaining amount helps fund our other programs, including the support we give to our members, advocacy initiatives like the Darfur scorecard and education initiatives. Your single dollar will be turned into many more dollars as it is used to pressure the United States to appropriate funds to the peacekeepers, to sign up more GI-Net members and to give those members the tools for effective fundraising and advocacy.
- Sign up for action alerts by entering your e-mail in the box at the top of this page. Action alerts will give you up-to-date information on how you can most effectively advocate for civilian protection and an end to the genocide. Learn about key legislation in Congress, actions taken by the president, and the many ways you can pressure elected officials to take substantive action, from calling your member of Congress to writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper to organizing community members to sign a petition.
- Investigate the actions of your members of Congress to stop the genocide in Darfur — thanking those who have stood against genocide, and urging those who have not taken action to do so — with GI-Net's Darfur scorecard. The first such scorecard of its kind, it demonstrates that despite Congress's 2004 declaration of genocide, many legislators have failed to take concrete steps to end the genocide.
- If you are a student or otherwise connected to a college/university or high school, start a STAND chapter. STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition is the student arm of the Genocide Intervention Network, with 600 high school and college chapters around the United States, as well as international chapters. Even if you are unable to start a chapter, sign up on the website for student news, advocacy talking points, and more. If you're connected to a faith community, check out Save Darfur's excellent Faith Action Packet on how you can get your congregation involved.
- Host a fundraiser and donate the proceeds to your favorite Darfur organization — Save The Children, the Genocide Intervention Network, Save Darfur, STAND, Africa Action, UNICEF, the Darfur Rehabilitation Project or others. We have a guide to hosting events with lots of ideas — hosting a "Dinner for Darfur," for instance, or selling anti-genocide t-shirts or green wristbands to raise awareness. Donations you make to the Genocide Intervention Network will directly support civilian protection on the ground in Darfur.
- Join the Sudan divestment campaign in your state. Take back your dollars from companies that fund the genocide in Darfur. Ask your governor and state legislators to support targeted divestment. Divest your own personal funds from Sudan. You can end the genocide tax and make sure your money isn't being used to kill innocent civilians!
- Tell the television news networks to Be A Witness and fully cover the genocide — because you can't stop a genocide if you don't know about it. Then stay up-to-date with the regular Darfur News Briefs. One example of on-the-ground reporting is the photo essay by retired U.S. Marine Brian Steidle, "In Darfur, My Camera Was Not Nearly Enough," available from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Committee of Conscience.
- Organize a Sprint for Darfur. The international community now faces a final sprint in what has been a long struggle for human security in Darfur. To symbolize this urgent moment, please consider hosting a Sprint for Darfur in your hometown. Invite participants to get friends, families and co-workers to sponsor them in the sprint. The funds you raise will help to get peacekeepers on the ground in Darfur, and will also go to the Sudanese Organization Against Torture, a human rights organization run by survivors of the genocide in Nyala, Darfur. Sprint for Darfur is co-sponsored by the Genocide Intervention Network and Africa Action.
- Convince your local municipality to approve a proclamation condemning the genocide and calling on the United States to get involved — the Save Darfur Coalition, of which GI-Net is a part, will help you find others in your area with whom to connect around local issues.
