Thursday, April 10, 2008

Beyond Celebrity T-Shirts

One of the trendy causes these days is public decrying of the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. I mean, what says, "hey, I care SO much about the world and the people in it!" like wearing a t-shirt with a smug look on your face?

Now, this is not to say that we shouldn't care about Darfur, or any other humanitarian crisis for that matter, but that we ought to take some action if we're going to let people know that we know about the situation. There are some celebs, like uber-stud George Clooney (check out the link to the TIME article) and Matt Damon who are actually taking initiative.

Columnist Nicholas Kristof recently wrote an article about what our government can do to help the Darfur crisis. I don't know how feasible all of his ideas are, but it's encouraging to think that it's possible to help the situation diplomatically without invading another country.

Now, we don't all have to go over to Africa or join the government to have an impact. There are a bunch of ways we can help, if we feel so inclined. Some organizations I recommend are Compassion International (for sponsoring families affected by the crisis), Save Darfur (which gives you lots of options for activism), and Darfur Genocide (which provides numerous ways to get in touch with government leaders).

Also, calling and e-mailing our elected representatitives does have an impact. Those people are elected to represent their constituencies and by letting them know that we care about the Darfur situation, we can enable them to push for legislative resolutions. I'm not here to say that we all have to take action on this, but it's nice to know that there are options for those who want to do more than just let other people know that we know about the crises in the world.

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