[tsl/public good] Deconstructing Darfur Week 4 Wrap-Up
Workshop 7
It is hard to believe we are in our last week of Deconstructing Darfur. This workshop was one of the last opportunities as a group to put together all the elements of our upcoming event to raise awareness and funds, the Torch Relay for Darfur. The team used this time to brainstorm missing parts and roles that need to be created before the event on Friday, June 13. I continue to be impressed on the willingness of all members of Deconstructing Darfur to take on anything and everything that needs to get done. This has often meant stepping out of their comfort zones and testing out new skills as they become builders or graphic designers to help make this event reality. Once again, this confirms the tremendous amount of talent that can be found within the TSL community and youth in general.
As the team developed their outreach strategy, they were both mindful and respectful of the financial decisions that are a part of development and fundraising strategies. As a group, the teens decided to have a minimal donation amount set in order to allow for as many participants as possible in the torch relay. We then discussed the concept of social responsibility and how this term is relevant to Deconstructing Darfur's community outreach. We looked at corporate social responsibility and how this concept might help DD members reach out to land and store owners in Second Life as place to post posters and vendors. To individuals and groups alike, we see the Torch Relay for Darfur as an opportunity to for people to rally together to raise awareness and support their fellow global citizens in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Workshop 8
Throughout the previous seven workshops, we have explored the genocide in Darfur and looked at the ways and responsibilities of everyday citizens like ourselves to take action, locally and globally. Today was our chance to step back and look at Darfur as just one element in the larger concept of naming violence, looking at the statistics and names that have become labels for other violent acts occurring in the world today. To begin this process, the teens brainstormed examples of genocide from any era and location. While the teens came up with a broad range of examples from around the globe, I found it interesting that none of the examples were of genocide that is happening in recent times including today. From there, we came up with common elements in each of these examples. These observations included killing, pain, oppression, a stronger force harming those they see as lower than them, and persecution according to race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, nationality, and lifestyle. Taking the teens' examples one step farther, we created a common definition of genocide.
Genocide is "trying to prove your race's supperiority" through "self-opinionation", that leads to "discrimination and destruction of others with contrary beleifs" and "widescale killing of any minority" or "group singled out on anything from hair color to nationality".
With this in mind, we set out to label our own violence. To do this, the students were split into 3 groups, each receiving a country description of their violence with a summary of the conflict and no more information. As a group they then had to go stand near one of three billboards portraying number of civilian deaths and refugees.
Next, they had to stand near the billboard that best describes the violence in their country description. The choices were: civil war, genocide, and war on terror.
Lastly, the teens had to stand near the sign with the country name that best describes their country description including Darfur, Iraq, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. None of the groups accurately determined all three elements of labeling their violence.
After the groups found out the actual country they represented and their statistics and label of the violence that correlates with it, we began to look at why this was. We found that sometimes multiple groups picked the same sign. One teen thought this might be because "the situations in countries may be the same, but other factors may be different". Having to assign a label based on the numbers and description led to an overwhelming response that "it made you realize what side you were on". Having to assign a real-life country name to their country card proved to be the hardest part. The group's responses include "sadness", "guilt", "as if I was choosing their fate". We realized the violence in the three places is named differently. In Iraq, it is said to be a war on terror; in Dem. Republic of Congo it is a civil war; and in Darfur, it is called genocide. We then asked why the difference in names? Our answers ranged from politics, morality, and media as we further explored who does the naming and who is being named when it comes to violence. The group discussed how the name and the numbers associated with the violence influence their views. It is my hope that the participants left the workshop with the understanding that Darfur is just one example of violence occurring around the world and it is as much up to them as it is the media or today's political leaders how they label the violence and choose to act accordingly.
