International Service: Sudan

From this week's bulletin
Our project this year: Sudan

Sudan is the largest of the many coutnries that make up the African continent. Its history reads as a continuous list of civil war and unrest. However, most notable in its history is the war that currently rages in the western region, Darfur.

Sicne 2003 the tribal communities that inhabit the region of Darfur have fought against the political, economic and social marginalisation brought on them by the Sudanese government. In retaliation, the Sudanese government have armed the Arab Janjaweed militia and charged them to clear the civial population bases in Darfur.

Since this time, hudnreds of thousands of people have been killed, and more than 2.5 million people have been displaced fromt heir homes. Despite efforts by the UN and African Union, the fighting continues. This is the 21st century's first genocide. It has been raging for over four years and still there is very limited public knowledge of it.

We have decided that our major international service project this year will be to create a greater public awareness about the absolutely horrible atrocities that continue to occur in Darfur. We want people to know about it, think about it and want to do somehting to help.

Currently we are still in the ideas phase of our planning, but we are seriously committed to doing something that will make a difference!

For further information on Darfur a great website is The Enough Project.

Also try looking at:
BBC's Q&A: Sudan's Darfur Conflict
The Darfur Australia Network

Welcome to our blog!

At the first meeting of the year we talked about setting up a website for Rotaract SWB. We decided to experiment with a blog first. We may decide to get the Duty Officer from each meeting to update the blog to spread the work around.

At last night's meeting we had committee planning. President Emily gave a run-down on the different event and guest speaker ideas that the club has tossed around lately then we broke into committes, broke out the butcher's paper and textas and each committee drafted and fleshed out events for the next six months. Each committee will present their ideas and plans at the next meeting (as well as typing the info up on an A4 sheet).

The Rotary Club of Jindalee has also suggested that we get together on the last Sunday of each month for Anti-Graffiti. Roster sheets went around the last meeting for Sunday 24th of Feb. The anti-graffiti itself will take place from 7am til 9am with a barbie afterwards. If you weren't there last night you can either add your name to the rosters at the next meetings (7th and 21st of Feb) or email rotaractswb@hotmail.com. If you can't go to February's anti-graffiti you might consider keeping your diary open for March 30th, April 27th, May 25th or June 29th.