i-Act 6 day 8: An Alternative to the Olympic opening ceremonies from Camp Oure Cassoni

By Citizen Correspondent Gabriel Stauring

Date Posted: 08/09/08

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During the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympic games, activist Mia Farrow and the Stop Genocide Now i-ACT team have another show for you to watch. They have been broadcasting from a refugee camp in Eastern Chad to bring attention to the victims of the conflict in Darfur, Sudan.

Although Darfuri children living in refugee and Internally Displaced People (IDP) camps can not attend, the Olympics, the i-Act team hopes athletes participating in the Olympics as part of Team Darfur can stand up for them.

Stop Genocide Now representatives, Gabriel Stauring and Katie-Jay Scott return to Eastern Chad, Africa as a part of the Dream for Darfur Olympics program. Stauring and Scott will not only visit refugee camps in an effort to bring attention to the genocide in Darfur, but also to urge China, the host of the 2008 Summer Olympics, to use its political power to instill a full protection force in Darfur, by persuading the Sudanese government to abide by UN Resolution 1769.

Furthermore, Stauring and Scott’s return to Africa will again ignite Stop Genocide’s sixth installment of their interactive-activism program i-ACT6. On August 1, 2008, i-ACT6 will again connect individuals in the United States with the faces, names, and lives of Darfur refugees who escaped the genocide in their homeland, through the Stop Genocide Now website. Daily video and journal posts from Stauring and Scott will be posted to the website directly from refugee camps in Chad, enabling i-ACT participants to connect with those in Africa and Stop Genocide Now activists.

“We want to continue putting a face to the numbers and allowing the voices of the victims to be heard,” said Stop Genocide Now founder Gabriel Stauring.