Sudan House Meeting

In order to organize Regis and Arrupe students, our group decided to hold a public house meeting. To our surprise, around thirty people showed up! We began the meeting by telling everyone why we brought everyone there, which was to organize them around the issue of genocide in Sudan. I then did a brief explanation of the history and what is currently going on in Sudan to get everyone on the same page. To get discussion going, we asked a number of questions to the group such as: why do you think this is still going on? Whose responsibility is it to end the genocide? What can you do as a student in the US to help? The discussion was slow at first so I kept having to talk and pick on people to explain what they think. Some questions aroused people’s interests more than others. After thirty minutes or so of this we asked what action steps they would be most interested in taking. This is when ideas starting flying. The action steps they came up with were  lobbying, holding a fundraiser, building relationships with the Sudanese community, divestment and a post card campaign. I then had everyone break up into groups to discuss which one they would like to do most. There ended up being three groups: fundraiser, divestment and post card campaign. Everyone in our community organizing group decided to sit and hear what each group had to say and to help them plan if needed. The Arrupe students planned to show the film “The Devil Came on Horseback” to their school, as well as do a post card campaign. Regis students, one of which is from Sudan, is planning on getting together with STAND in planning a dinner event next semester to raise money for both Seeds of Hope and health care supplies in Darfur. The goal of the dinner is also to invite the Sudanese community so that students and professors at Regis can build relationships with the Sudanese in Denver. Overall the house meeting went well. The forum educated the students on things they didn’t already know about Sudan, as well as organized them to start taking action on the issue.