Please share your thoughts, questions, comments, reactions.
This conference was so powerful. I wish you were able to stay the afternoon to see and hear Simon Deng...I'll tell you all about it when we meet in class.
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I have to admit, I really didn't want to come to this conference yesterday morning, but now I'm glad I did. I had never even heard of Darfur until yesterday. Despite having to sit there for so long, which was a little hard, I enjoyed listening to the speakers. The one that touched me the most was Dr. Jerry Ehrlich. In my opinion, he brought to us the true victims of this horrific thing going on in Darfur...the children. So last night I was laying in bed thinking to myself, as future teachers of America, is there anything we can do for the kids? We probably cannot completely stop the genocide, but maybe together as a class or department or school, we can save the life of at least one more starving child there. I thought maybe we can run some kind of drive at school. Food, blankets, clothes something? I don't know...maybe I'm way over my head, but somehow I feel like we can help in some way. Please let me know what you all think.
During the afternoon session, a few teachers stood up and announced that they had Simon Deng (survivor) at their school; the schools raised funds for the cause-- imipressive sums...aside from the money, they told us how valuable it was for their students to be aware, educated and responsive to the humanitarian effort.
STAND was mentioned more than once, and exists on some college campuses--no one mentioned that we have a group here at Kean, so I guess you can begin by inquiring at Student Org to see if there's anything in place here.
Mindy, I agree with you; Dr. Jerry Ehrlich was the best of the morning. He sat at our lunch table with his sister-in-law, and I have to tell you that I felt like I was sitting with a real angel. I guess I was.
I was impressed with this conference and Kean's role in it. I realized, sadly, that I had seen pictures like this coming out of Africa my entire life. (National Geographic.) Now I understand the history a little better. This topic has been a family discussion. My husband and I are active community volunteers and we've provided a humanitarian way of life for our kids (as our parents had done for us). My daughter's 7th grade class is organizing a fundraiser for Uganda. And my 5th grade Girl Scout troop is providing food for local families in need. I left the conference wondering if Darfur could be our next outreach. But I haven't figured out how to explain the situation to a group of happy-go-lucky, fortunate 10-year-old girls. Any ideas?
I am glad that I had the opportunity to attend the Darfur conference. Like Mindy, I also enjoyed hearing Dr. Jerry Ehrlich's stories about the children living in Darfur. They were very touching and inspirational. Nicholas D. Kristof's stories from his trips to Darfur were also very powerful. I wish I could have stayed for the afternoon session because I would have liked to hear Simon Deng speak about his life experience in Sudan. Overall, it was a great experience.
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