Holocaust Memorial/Genocide Awareness Week

I'm sorry I haven't updated in ages. I've been incredibly busy with classes, and life in general. As some of you may know that in the beginning of the year, I joined a group called SHOUT (Students Helping Others Understand Tolerance). This week, our efforts have finally turned out a finish product. This week was Holocaust Memorial/Genocide Awareness Week on my university campus. It was an amazing week. Absolutely. We had three lectures, one featuring two Holocaust survivors, Sally Wasserman and Philip Riteman; one on Darfur with Norman Epstein, the founder of Canadians Against Slavery in The Sudan (CASTS) and part of the Save Darfur Coalition; and one tonight from Juliet Karughe (I'm spelling her name wrong) who witnessed the events in Rwanda in 1994. The turn out for all three of the major events were fantastic. More than we expected. For the Holocaust lecture, around 300 people showed up. Great, considering seating in the auditorium is only about 200! I spent the day with Philip and his wife, Dorothy. They are both some of the most amazing, sweetest people I have ever met. Wednesday, I made sure I spoke afterwards to Norman Epstein. He is doing such amazing things, balancing a full time career as an emergency doctor and an amazing activism career. He makes me feel like I should be doing more. This evening, as it was the last event, I spoke with Juliet. You would never know to look at her that she saw the horrific things that had happened in her home country. She didn't speak much about it. All of these people have such amazing strength. They make me feel so small. I need to organize myself so that I can do much more. We currently have around 100 letters signed to send to the Prime Minister about Darfur and what the Canadian role there should be. We should have more tomorrow. I'm kind of involved with STAND (Students Taking Action Now: Darfur), well, I'm the main contact here at STU for anything STAND has going on. So I guess that makes me super involved. Not a whole lot is going on though. Maybe when my brain is working again I may be able to do something more. But anyway, this has been a great week. I'm so glad that I got involved this year and didn't wait. I just want to let everyone know, those who helped organize it, that I appreciate everything you've done and all of the amazing things you've helped me learn, about myself and about situations around the world, so much. Thank you for being my friends. To those who came out to the events, thank you for making this week a success. We all worked very hard to make this happen. Kudos to us!