RJ Stangherlin

Keystone Technology Integrator and STAR Discovery Educator

This site is for Mrs. Stangherlin's classes at Salisbury High School.

21st Century Genocide: The Darfur Symposium

Under the guidance of Jennifer Brinson, assisted by Marge McGinty and Michele Honochick, students created an in-house field trip to address the crisis in Darfur.  Classes that attended the Symposium were given an overview before they attended.  The instruction began with discussing an article, “How to Prevent the Next Darfur: Step One--Get Serious About Climate Change,” by Alex Perry, writing from Iriba, Chad, the site of refugee camps.  The next step was viewing and discussing two videos: Crisis in Darfur and Searching for Jacob

The Symposium began with introduction that gave an overview of the current situation.  Students then viewed Darfur Diaries, a study of harsh survival against every odd.  The docudrama, filmed on site in 2003, detailed the genocide inflicted on native Africans by the Janjaweed.  Graphic and difficult to watch, the film depicts the decimated tribal villages and the experiences of the 200,000+ refugees who survived the terror of attack, still not always knowing the outcome of some of their family members.

The historical context of Darfur was presented by Ellen, Jacqueline, Melissa, Sam, Christina, and Brittney.  They traced the history of how the Sudan became Islamic and the problems of the current dictatorship that encourage ethnic cleansing of native Africans.  The current crisis and proposed United States response was presented by Sara, Kelsey, Jessie, Jennifer, Roxy, Nicole, and Britteny.  The students explored what the United States should do to remedy the genocide in Darfur, beyond labeling the situation genocide, which is only the starting point to resolution.

The current US response and actions not/taken by the US Congress were presented by US Representative Charles Dent.  This part of the program was a thought-provoking, intelligent, and animated Q/A among the students and Rep. Dent.  [the rest of this blog was written by Lauren] What the students said was what Dent needed to hear, because it allowed him to become aware of what students were capable of asking.  Questions ranged from the war in Iraq to what our country’s government planned on doing about the situation in Darfur. 

Juniors Lauren DeSieno, Lindsay Hoolehan and Courtney Loomis followed Rep. Dent with an informative presentation on what the students of Salisbury High School can do with the situation in Darfur.  At the Model UN at Georgetown University, Miss Brinson and Miss Honochick attended a conference where 2 students presented STAND and wanted to get the other schools involved in the program. These students advocated the STAND program to be introduced at their schools and to start their own STAND chapter. We introduced the program to the audience at the Darfur Symposium and got them to sign up for furthur STAND events.  The goal of the STAND presentation was to advocate what is going on in Darfur to the citizens of the United States, not just its government.  The Symposium wanted to show people what is happening in Darfur because Darfur affects us as the genocide continues to grow.  Rep. Dent came back in his Q/A to the war in Iraq because of the media coverage, but Darfur’s genocide continues and we need to take a stand.