As we enter the holiday season and prepare to inaugurate a new year, we would like to take the time to thank you for the dedication you have shown the anti-genocide movement. Across the country Americans like you rallied, wrote letters to newspapers, met with their representatives, donated their money and launched a range of innovative campaigns in a unified cry of "Never Again!"
We hope that your holidays are truly happy, and that you spend the next week re-connecting with friends and family, and preparing for the next year.
We are also at a crucial moment in the Darfur genocide and we call on you to remain as active in the coming weeks and months as you have been the past year.
With pictures from a year of activism below the fold, and two new ways to help: Sprint for Darfur and i-ACT citizen journalism from Darfur!
The fate of the genocide's survivors hang in the balance, hostage to the agonizingly slow pace of diplomatic efforts to get UN peacekeepers deployed. To this end, and to demonstrate the urgency with which we must act, the Genocide Intervention Network and our partner, Africa Action, are announcing a new campaign.
SPRINT FOR DARFUR
Nothing short of an international peacekeeping intervention will protect Darfur. Help us to get peacekeeping "boots" on the ground in Darfur by strapping on your own boots (or running shoes) for a public sprint to raise awareness, resources and political pressure to stop the genocide.
To symbolize this urgent moment, please consider hosting a sprint in your hometown. Invite participants to get pledges from friends, families and co-workers to sponsor the run. Invite them to give an amount of money per meter or per second and to sign a letter or postcard to President Bush that asks for his increased leadership to break the deadlock on Darfur.
Half of the funds you raise will support advocacy initiatives to help get effective peacekeepers on the ground and the other half will go to the Sudanese Organization Against Torture, a human rights organization run by survivors of the genocide in Nyala, Darfur.
Go to www.SprintForDarfur.com to join us!
INTERACTIVE CITIZEN JOURNALISM FROM DARFUR
We would also like to encourage you to participate in i-Act, an exciting opportunity to connect with the victims of the genocide.
The i-ACT team will be webcasting videos for 14 consecutive days from the refugee camps on the Chad-Darfur border. Anyone with an Internet connection will be able to interact with the victims of this ongoing genocide. Hear their voices -- and add your voice -- by visiting www.StopGenocideNow.org.
Yesterday, Gabriel and Stacey from Stop Genocide Now used their first day to visit N'djamena, Chad, where they interviewed Ann Maymann, Senior Officer of the UN High Commission for Refugees.
Today's report documents announcements made by António Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. "Darfur is ... the epicenter of an earthquake, whose waves create all the troubles in the countries around," Guterres says. Watch the whole report and add your comments at www.StopGenocideNow.org.
KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!
With your help, we can end this genocide!
--Colin, Ivan and the entire Genocide Intervention Network team
THE YEAR IN PICTURES
Tens of thousands rally in Washington, DC, in April
Hundreds of students converge for the Power to Protect conference
Activists meet with their legislators about Darfur
Die-in for Darfur at the White House
Rally for UN peacekeepers in New York City
GI-Net students help fund peacekeepers with bake sales
California divests from Sudan
<font class="text">More images from the Genocide Intervention Network
<font class="text">More images from the anti-genocide movement