Here at Enough, we often swap emails with interesting articles and feature stories that we come across in our favorite publications and on our favorite websites. We wanted to share some of these stories with you as part of our effort to keep you up to date on what you need to know in the world of anti-genocide and crimes against humanity work.
Not sure when Condition: Critical, MSF’s advocacy arm for Congo, posted these four new videos about displacement, but they are spectacularly done and very moving. The videos do an impressive job—with the use of vivid audio and raw photos—of providing an authentic glimpse into Congo. The common story throughout this series is particularly dramatic when you consider that, after all the hardships each person has endured, they are the lucky ones; they have made it to relative safety.
Nick Kristof, blogging from Congo, posted this update about the very admirable work of Valentino Deng, (whose story was the basis of Dave Eggers’s award-winning book What Is The What). After settling in the U.S. during Sudan’s civil war, Valentino recently decided to return to Sudan and get to work building the first secondary school in his hometown of Marial Bai. The project has taken off in recent months, as Eggers reports on Kristof’s blog.
Change.org’s Michelle (the Stop Genocide blogger) wrote an excellent reflection on the usefulness of speeches, published the morning after the State of the Union. Noting that President Obama has made public pronouncements about genocide and Darfur in the past, she aptly wonders: “Rather than asking for more public commitments, what will it take to make sure that those already made will be effectively and transparently implemented?”
It’s a bonus to hear a photographer describe his or her photographs and learn about the story taking place right outside the frame or in the moments before the shot. That’s what you get with this piece by CNN’s All Africa program featuring photographer Peter Biro of the International Rescue Committee and his recent work in eastern Congo.
The headline is certainly attention grabbing: “African leaders are finally solving African problems.” Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai’s op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor commends in particular the African Union’s panel on Darfur for developing “a road map for achieving a political resolution to not only conflict in Darfur, but also to the historically recognized root causes of conflict in Sudan, including in south Sudan.” AU leaders gathered this week in Ethiopia for their first summit of 2010, focused on ushering a year of ‘peace and security’ for Africa. It makes us feel hopeful to know that Wangari Maathai is hopeful.