Photo courtesy of Daniel Morrison

This election season sure has been an interesting one. Between having the first African American presidential candidate, our nation being at war, and the current crisis in the money markets, it would be hard for anyone not to realize the importance of November 4, 2008.

Although I know there is the will and the desire for people to get involved in the election and make our voices be heard, this can be a scary proposition for anyone who is employed by, or works with, a nonprofit organization with 501(c)(3) status, like UUSC.

There are many laws that control how these organizations and their staff conduct themselves during an election cycle. But I would argue that it is a moral imperative that we get involved in all the ways that can this election season.

Although 501(c)(3) staff CAN NOT tell people who to vote for, we can talk about the issues that we care about. Working for a nonprofit organization and knowing many people on a personal basis means we have a good idea of what community members care about and what is affecting them on a day-to-day basis.

There are national issues such as the war in Iraq, the inadequate attention paid to Gulf Coast recovery, and the genocide in Darfur.

These are issues that can galvanize people to make their voices heard.

In addition, there are many local ballot initiatives that 501(c)(3) staff can lobby the public on. For instance, I live in Massachusetts, born and bred, and we are in the midst of a fight of a lifetime on Ballot Question 1. This is a move to repeal the state income tax, which provides 40 percent of the Massachusetts state budget.

When I think of all the people I have worked with in the social service sector and how many organizations would be crippled by the passage of Ballot Question 1, I am frightened about what might happen.

Similarly, many states have ballot initiatives promoting “the protection of marriage,” a movement to limit the rights of gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual citizens.

Make no mistake, people are being galvanized on both sides of these issues.0 (They call them “wedge issues” for a reason!)

As employees and volunteers in the nonprofit sector who have dedicated our time and passion to the issues and people we care about, we have a responsibility to help our constituents make their voices heard.

DON’T name a candidate of your liking.

DO make sure your elderly neighbor can get to the polls.

DO take voter registration forms to your local homeless shelter.

DO organize members of your congregation to register voters.

A lot is at stake on November 4, no matter what your political affiliation. Voting is one of our rights. For those of us committed to human rights, it is our responsibility to help make voting possible for all the people we work for.

For more information about the Dos and Don’ts of 501(c)(3) organizations, in particular churches, read the UUA’s The Real Rules: Congregations and the IRS Guidelines On Advocacy, Lobbying, and Elections.

Today is a birthday. It's the 43rd anniversary of Medicare, and around the country, people who care about health care — or the lack of it — will be taking birthday cakes to their representatives' and senators' offices, asking them to support Rep. John Conyer's H.R. 676 - Improved Medicare for All.

What a paradox it is that 80 percent of Americans think that the government should guarantee health care for everyone, and, yet, there is little political support for it. It is still considered a socialist-leaning proposition, although we are the only industrialized country in the world without a national health-insurance system.

H.R. 676 would provide: primary care and prevention, inpatient care, outpatient care, emergency care, prescription drugs, durable medical equipment, long-term care, mental-health care, dental services (other than cosmetic dentistry), substance-abuse treatment services, chiropractic services, basic vision care and vision correction, and even services such as hearing aids. Everyone with a government-issued health insurance card would be entitled to these services anywhere in the United States without having to pay deductibles, copayments, or coinsurance.

We have come close to having such a system of national health insurance at least twice in the past century. The first time was under Theodore Roosevelt, who supported national health insurance because he believed that no nation could be strong when its people are sick and poor. Many European countries adopted forms of compulsory health insurance around this time, and momentum was building here too, until WWI. As anti-German sentiments and fear of Bolshevism swept the country, health insurance was denounced as a "Prussian menace" or tarred as a communist ploy. A fatal mistake at that time was to include a funeral benefit in the plan. While popular with the working class, it was seen as a threat to the huge insurance industry, which sucked dollars out of the poor who feared a pauper's burial.

It would be another forty years until genuine momentum built again for a form of national health insurance, under President Harry Truman. But this time it was the American Medical Association that was threatened, and they assessed their members a special war tax to wage a $1.5 million anti-insurance campaign, which was at that time the most expensive lobbying effort in the history of the United States. One of their brochures read, "Would socialized medicine lead to socialization of other phases of life? Lenin thought so. He declared socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of the socialist state." Advertisements in national magazines showed drawings of a mother with her baby in a physician's office as a menacing jackbooted soldier, with a bayonet, kicked the door down. Tainted again as a precursor to an inevitable communist takeover, Truman's plan for national health insurance died in a congressional subcommittee.

Who opposes H.R. 676 today? Once again, it is the powerful insurance industry. H.R. 676 proposes to finance its plan, in part, with savings from the 30 to 40 cents on each insurance premium dollar that private insurance companies charge for overhead, marketing, and advertising costs.

This is why there is no political will, despite a large majority of Americans favoring the guarantee of health care for everyone. There is huge lobbying money arrayed against H.R. 676, and too few politicians have the courage to stand up for it, lest they be labeled socialist or communist. Despite this lingering fear, however, 90 representatives have signed on to be cosponsors of this bill.

While I was at UUA General Assembly, in Fort Lauderdale, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which represents more than 1,000 cities with populations over 30,000, met in Miami and unanimously adopted a resolution supporting H.R. 676. Also endorsing it are 34 state AFL-CIO federations, 110 central labor councils, and more than 445 union organizations.

So today, if you don't have time to take a birthday cake to your senator's or representative's office, send an electronic birthday card and tell her or him to celebrate Medicare's 43rd birthday by supporting H.R. 676. We can have national health insurance. The American people want it. It will do more for the poor, more quickly, than any single poverty alleviation program. H.R. 676 is profoundly about economic justice.

Iraqi refugee family from a mixed Sunni and Shia neighborhood in baghdad now living in Damascus, Syria. Photo by James Gordan, 2007. All rights reserved.

World Refugee Day is observed every year on June 20. According to a June 2008 report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the total number of people considered as refugees and internally displaced people amounts to 67 million.

On this day, it is important to reflect on how climate change, poverty, and conflicts (both long-standing and new) have ravaged the lives of millions of people who were forced to flee from their homes. It is also important to take this moment to pressure our government to provide more resources to assist and protect this vulnerable and sometimes forgotten population.

According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, the number of refugees and displaced people are expected to continue to increase: "Now, unfortunately, with the multiplication of conflicts and the intensification of conflicts, the number is on the rise again...people being forced to move, unfortunately, will be one of the characteristics of the 21st century."

Over the past year, much of the increase in the number of refugees and internally displaced people can be attributed to conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

For the past year, UUSC's Civil Liberties Program has focused on The Cost of Iraq: Who Pays the Price?, drawing attention to, among others, the millions of Iraqis who have been displaced by the war. Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, almost 5 million Iraqis have been forced from their homes by violence and insecurity. Almost half of those are "internally displaced," having fled elsewhere in Iraq. Others have fled to Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Syria, and other neighboring countries. Because the vast majority of these refugees do not have an official refugee status, they could be deported back to Iraq at any time. They face challenges in finding housing and employment, obtaining food, and accessing health and education systems, particularly in host countries.

The lack of security and the political deadlock in Iraq have contributed to this situation. These issues need to be addressed in earnest by members of the international community, especially the United States.

According to a June 28, 2008, article in the Christian Science Monitor, Sweden is home to the largest number of refugees in Europe, 40,000; while the United Kingdom houses about 22,000. To date, only 8,000 Iraqis have been settled in the United States. Recently, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pledged that the United States will process applications for 12,000 Iraqi refugees by September. While this is good news, much, much more needs to be done for the millions of Iraqis displaced by the war.

UUSC supports legislation to assist Iraqi civilians and calls on Congress to increase funding for programs authorized under the Torture Victims Relief Act. We also advocate increased assistance for internally displaced Iraqis, Iraqi refugees in the region, and Iraqi refugees resettling in the United States.

I watched a young man cry the other day. Tears streamed down his face as he described, in vivid detail, the atrocities he both witnessed and participated in, in Iraq. He, alongside other veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, was participating in a four-day conference called Winter Soldier.

The point of Winter Soldier, as I saw it, was two-fold. First, it provided a space for these damaged souls to raise their voices and build solidarity, while painting a picture of large-scale, systemic abuse within the military. Secondly, it aimed to grow the resistance movement within the military, a task that, after listening for four days, I realize is incredibly, painfully difficult.

I think about this today in the wake of Justice Sunday 2008, because, more and more, I am thinking about the value of life, the values of our society, and the moral questions this war raises.

This year, UUSC is asking UU congregations around the United States to examine the question: The Cost of Iraq: Who Pays the Price? I am finding, on close examination, that we are all paying the price, both economically and spiritually, for this ever-shifting mess we call the war in Iraq (part of the larger so-called Global War on Terror). Right now, if you examine the financial debt created by this war, there is no argument that, as a society, we will, indeed, pay an economic price for this war. Our kids, and our kids’ kids, will likely be saddled with the $3-5 trillion of debt created for this war.

But to me, far more distressing than this debt is the human toll of this war – the price that those waging this war, on the ground, are paying. After listening to four days of testimony, one thing is clear to me: when it comes to the war in Iraq, abuses within the military are not anomalous episodes that are limited to individual soldiers. They are the result of orders issued from the highest levels of our government.

Below are just a few of the snapshots from Winter Soldier, an event that should be examined by everyone who wants to understand the toll on humanity that this war is exacting.

*****

Dehumanization – Part 1
It was excruciating to hear soldiers’ first-hand experiences. More than once, I had to look down and focus inward, unable to listen to another story about death, destruction, or dehumanization alongside gross illustrations of ignorance and racism.

Take, for example, the way that four soldiers described in detail how they were forced to take pictures of the dead. Not pictures for documentation purposes or for keeping records of those killed in friendly fire, but what soldiers described repeatedly as “trophy photos,” photos of their “kills.” They described not only being congratulated on their first kills, but also being encouraged to photograph the dead, sometimes in front of community and family members, while other soldiers laughed, jeered, and, at times, mutilated the bodies.

When one soldier refused to take such a picture, he was hazed in a variety of cruel and dangerous ways – as punishment, he was given only a half-empty medical kit and not provided the gas mask that all other soldiers in his platoon carried.

Dehumanization – Part 2

There was the story of an 18-year-old soldier who signed up as a “foreign observer.” On September 11, 2001, from the small community he grew up in on Long Island, he had seen smoke rise from the twin towers. Angry, he made the choice to enlist, to fight for the things he held dear, his family, his town, New York, and America. But now, as I looked at him, he was something else entirely – deadened, quiet, pained. Testifying in front of cameras, he wished he could take that day back, that day of anger, when he chose war.

“I was a great soldier once upon a time,” he said. “But now I stand here doing more for my brothers than I ever did there.”

He told a story about pushing humanity’s limits, about dehumanizing the other, about the place that war can take us. Once, he saw a little boy on the side of the street holding up a small stick, as if to indicate a gun. The boy was about six years old, maybe playing at war the way many children do – a real life Iraqi version of cops and robbers, right there with an American soldier. But for the soldier, it was not a game. This soldier, the young man in front of me, told of his internal struggle not to shoot this boy, a six-year-old with nothing more than a stick in his hand. He was angry at this son of Iraq for things he had never done, for things he had nothing to do with.

When he told the audience of not shooting the boy, they stood up and clapped. How far has humanity gone when not shooting a six-year-old with a stick is something we can applaud?

That, in turn, made me cry.

*****

Abuses and the rules of engagement

Over four days, we saw other evidence of a disintegrating moral compass. Take the stories I heard about shovels, which are read by the U.S. military as indicators of Iraqi hostility. According to on-the-ground military protocol, an Iraqi who is simply walking on a road can’t be considered hostile simply by virtue of his or her existence. However, an Iraqi who is carrying a shovel on the road is an entirely different story. The argument is that shovels could be used to bury improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

That’s why, in testimony after testimony, soldiers described how they carried shovels with them, sometimes entire truckfulls. The shovels provided cover in cases where an Iraqi was accidentally killed. By placing one next to him or her, that Iraqi was transformed into a hostile combatant. If the soldiers felt remotely threatened, they knew they could act with impunity – as long as they had a shovel handy. It was that simple.

But, in a country desperately struggling to rebuild, shovels are often necessary. People need to rebuild their homes, their schools, their mosques – and they often have nothing more than the labor their bodies can generate. In a country where shovels are ubiquitous with the effort to rebuild, the idea that a shovel alone indicates hostile intent is more than ironic – it’s criminally absurd.

But what about helping?

Sometimes cruelty came in other forms. We heard testimony about humanitarian rations, which, according to the soldiers I listened to, they were told not to hand out. One soldier told a story of how he was specifically ordered to stop handing out humanitarian rations, and only carry them. At the end of his deployment, on his return to Kuwait, he still had the rations with him. His sergeant told him to bury them. That’s just what he did, heart heavy – he buried the humanitarian rations he’d been carrying around.

Other soldiers told stories of “meals ready to eat,” or MREs, which are equipped with a chemical mechanism that heats the meal. By themselves, outside this meal-heating mechanism, the chemicals are dangerous. Many soldiers talked about giving these chemical packets, without the food, to young children. Others talked about throwing bottles of urine at people on the side of the road, driving their Humvees over the ruins of ancient Babylon, defecating in U.N. headquarters, and, possibly most sad, shooting and bombing mosques for no other reason than that they were there.

*****

Supporting our troops

I also heard the story of attempted suicide. One young man was charged with misconduct when he attempted suicide because, by making the attempt, he prevented his return to Iraq. Once he was dishonorably discharged from service, he lost his ability to get benefits from the army or go to college. He had few options open to him.

He decided to deliver pizzas, but only once a week, because he couldn’t handle more than that. Now, on some days, he gets so drunk he blacks out. That takes care of the pain. Sometimes, instead of going to his job, he spends his day at the VA hospital, begging for help to get him back on his feet. But so far, he’s gotten none.

This was the same man who’d seen the twin towers fall, who on September 11 was looking to kill. And, slowly, he got to the point where the only thing he wanted to do was die. He hated Iraqis, once upon a time. But where is he now?

Our responsibility

Winter Soldier is not a story of good and evil, where everything works out just so. It’s not black and white or us versus them. It’s a story of some of the darkest moments in American history; of systematic racism and imperialism; tradeoffs between human resources and human life; the erosion of faith in the military; and destructive aggression by an occupying power – the United States of America.

But this story is not just their story. It’s our story too, as citizens, as humans. We own this war. We pay for it. We vote for and against it. Few questioned the government when they told us that weapons of mass destruction existed or that Saddam Hussein was linked to Al Qaeda. We listened when they told us that we had to send more troops for the surge. We have failed too.

In the end, this is a story of judgment. It’s a story of coming to terms with anger and frustration towards the troops, who, in many ways, are the machinery that propels this war. It’s the story of my internal struggle with the issue of supporting the troops and what that means. In many ways, Winter Soldier helped me realize that it’s the troops who are leading this movement against the war, that they own this resistance movement.

Bumper stickers and flags are not actions of support; no, supporting the troops means listening to those who have waged this war, and then responding to what they need and what they know.

And, it’s up to us to do this.

So, look at it, watch the testimony, and hear for yourself.

 

On November 9, UUSC's Economic Justice Program staff attended three trainings at the 2007 “Nonprofit Workout,” whose theme this year was “The Ways We Lead: Creating Adaptive, Inclusive Organizations.”

The afternoon workshop I attended was called "System-wide Governance: A New Model for Creating Democratic Sustainable Grassroots Organizations."

This workshop presented a new model for nonprofit “governance." Governance is a tricky concept that most people associate with the primary role of the board of directors.

I was interested in this workshop because of some of the things I've witnessed in our partner work. Over the past three years, it's become clear that cultivating, training, and engaging a diverse, engaged leadership council (or board) has made a "make it or break it" difference in the long-term sustainability and success of some of our partner organizations.

Given the demands and precarious nature of labor rights work – especially cultivating leaders, processes, and infrastructure that are capable of supporting the growth of a long-term, resilient (and responsive!) labor rights movement – creating effective relationships among staff, board, members, and constituents is essential.

Over the years, UUSC's technical support to some of our partners has centered on strengthening this network of relationships. (Personally, as a board member of different organizations, I'm also fascinated by the variety of interpretations of the role of the board – in both the nonprofit and for-profit sector.)

The idea behind System-wide Governance is simple, but radical – and the perspective I took away from the workshop gave me food for thought to share with our partners, and in my own multiple roles as a board member, staff, and constituent!

Here's the gist:

System-Wide Governance is a model in which governance responsibility is shared across the organizational system among the key sectors of an organization – that is, members, staff, and board.

It is based upon principles of participatory democracy, self-determination, and genuine partnership and on community-level decision-making as the foundation of true democracy.

Critical organizational and strategic decisions are made together by active members, staff, and board. The types of decisions that are made in this way are those that determine key strategic directions or changes, long-term programmatic or organizational visions, new initiatives, political positions, and major policy and/or organizational decisions.

This approach was taken on to great success by one of UUSC's neighbors in Cambridge – Centro Presente – a member-driven, state-wide Latin American immigrant organization which strives to give their members voice and build community power.

Many successful programs and advocacy initiatives have come out of their work – including currently, the emergence of a worker center.

Ariel and I will be sharing these models with our partners as they work to build movements and programs that place member workers at the center.

To read more, check out:

"System-wide Governance for Community Engagement," by Maria Elena Letona and Judy Freiwirth. The Nonprofit Quarterly, Winter 2006.

"Engagement Governance for System-wide Decision-making," by Judy Freiwirth (check out p. 2 of the article for a useful diagram of this model), The Nonprofit Quarterly, Summer 2007.

On November 9, UUSC's Economic Justice Program staff attend three trainings at the 2007 “Nonprofit Workout,” a biennial conference whose theme this year was “The Ways We Lead: Creating Adaptive, Inclusive Organizations.”

One of those workshops was called “Circles of Change,” led by Linda Stout and Pamela Freeman. If you aren't already familiar with Linda's work, she is a nationally known activist, speaker and author, founder of the Piedmont Peace Project, and leader of a movement-building organization called Spirit in Action.

If you were one of the 400 UUs who attended Linda's workshop at Portland's General Assembly this year, you know what I'm talking about!

Spirit in Action addresses three key themes that Linda heard consistently from activists working for social change across many issues and many constituencies. She writes:

• "We must create a vision of what we are trying to build. People will not join us if all they see us talk about is what we are against, not what we are for.
• "We need to learn new ways to communicate and connect with each other. We often re-create the competitive and distrustful environments that we are trying to work against. Racism, classism, and other oppressions affect how we work together, and we often look at each other with the most critical eye, rather than paying attention to each other’s best gifts.
• "The third thing folks talked about was what I call 'spirit' or heart connection – a connection to something greater than ourselves, a connection to each other, to the earth, to the ancestors, and to our deepest self. Many activists talked of being drawn to social justice work from deeply held heart-values or spiritual beliefs. Yet there is little time for paying attention to spirit in our political work, and many people feel this, especially when they need something to sustain them through difficult times. People also felt this lack kept us from connecting with each other as deeply as we should."

I was really excited to meet Linda in person, having read and given away dozens of copies of her groundbreaking book “Bridging the Class Divide” over the past decade. This little green book tells the story of the Piedmont Peace Project and emphasizes the importance of deliberately cultivating class awareness for creating democratic, inclusive, and sustainable grassroots movements.

The “Circles” workshop taught skills for working collectively in diverse groups, a process for collective visioning, how to encourage interactive learning, and ways to foster trust and openness as the basis for powerful ideas and collaboration.

The techniques were helpful and refreshing, including a practice of gathering group agreements before engaging in debate, and leading a team in a visioning process that encourages big bold “outside of the box” thinking.

These were tools I could immediately apply in our focus groups, in staff meetings, in union discussions – and tools I could share with partners to assist them in cultivating the innate creativity, freedom, generosity, and leadership of people in their communities.

One of the many jewels I brought back was a reflection by Margaret Wheatley. I recently used it to open a brainstorming session in a partner focus group, and I share it here:

Turning to One Another

There is no power greater than a community discovering what
it cares about. Ask “what’s possible?” Not, “what’s wrong?”

Keep asking.

Notice what you care about.

Assume that many others share your dreams.

Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.

Talk to people you know.

Talk to people you don’t know.

Talk to people you never talk to.

Be intrigued by the differences you hear.

Expect to be surprised.

Treasure curiosity more than certainty.

Invite in everyone who cares to work on what’s possible.

Acknowledge that everyone is an expert about something.

Know that creative solutions come from new connections.

Remember, you don’t fear people whose story you know.

Real listening always brings people closer together.

Trust that meaningful conversation can change your world.

Rely on human goodness. Stay together.

Trust that.

I'm always looking for new skills to help me better manage the Economic Justice Program and cultivate our partnerships. Recently, Ariel and I tapped into some staff development funds to help us learn about some new models for strengthening collaboration for social change.

On November 9, we attend three trainings at the 2007 “Nonprofit Workout,” a biennial conference offering dozens of workshops and attracting nonprofit leaders from across the country. This year’s theme was “The Ways We Lead: Creating Adaptive, Inclusive Organizations.”

The next few postings give an overview of the workshops we attended, and how what we learned relates to our work. Click on any of the embedded links to learn more!

It takes many different ingredients to make a good gumbo. The same can be said about making good public policy -- especially when we want to create a just and equitable recovery for the Gulf Coast. Some of the key ingredients are coming together this week on Capitol Hill. Delegations of Hurricane Katrina and Rita survivors are in Washington, D.C. to share their experiences and insights with policymakers, the press, and the national organizations that want to help.

Earlier this year, Representatives Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Barney Frank (D-MA) held field hearings in the Gulf Coast region. They learned that one of the greatest unmet needs was affordable housing -- an essential first ingredient for recovery. Out of that testimony, they drafted and passed the Gulf Coast Hurricane Recovery Act (H.R. 1227). The Senate companion bill, the Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act (S. 1668), introduced by Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Chris Dodd (D-CT), authorizes even more resources that would help renters and public housing residents to return home. But the bill is stuck in committee. A hearing was held earlier today thanks to the presence of the Gulf Coast delegation. They are helping to get things cooking again!

Nobody knows how to fix a good gumbo better than folks from the region. We need to follow their directions and help stir the pot. Let's make the phones ring off the hook while the Gulf Coast delegation is on Capitol Hill. Take action with UUSC today!

First it was Fidelity, now it’s Berkshire Hathaway. Two of the world’s largest financial investment firms have sold off huge chunks of stock in a major Chinese oil company, although neither is admitting that it took these actions in order to help end the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. However, the financial media is abuzz this week with news of multibillionaire Warren Buffett’s decision to sell $140 million worth of Berkshire Hathaway stock in PetroChina Co.

 

Clearly the momentum for divestment is building and the Drumbeat for Darfur is getting louder. The sale by Berkshire Hathaway was its second of PetroChina shares. The corporation is the second largest oil company by market value, and is the major purchaser of oil from Sudan.

The announcement came one week after coalitions of anti-genocide activists, including UUSC, launched expanded divestment campaigns to target more investment companies whose holdings include corporations that are helping to fuel the four-year-old genocide in Darfur. UUSC’s Drumbeat for Darfur campaign has already been pressuring Fidelity Investments, which also sold large chunks of stock while denying it was responding to pressure from anti-genocide activists. On September 5, 2007, UUSC joined colleague organizations Investors Against Genocide and Fidelity Out of Sudan in delivering petitions representing 150,000 signatures to Fidelity’s Boston headquarters.

While the divestment campaign continues to pick up steam, you can help keep the momentum building. A bill that would protect states from lawsuits when they enact divestment legislation is stalled in the U.S. Senate. Call or e-mail your U.S. senators today and urge them to act swiftly on this proposed law that will help ramp up the divestment drumbeat until it becomes deafening.

 

You are a 14-year-old girl named Elham and you live in a camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Darfur. Or maybe you are Elham's 12-year-old brother, Jaja. Or perhaps you are Elham's and Jaja's young mother, Sittina.

Now, as any of these people, you must leave the relative safety of your camp to find water.

What will happen to you?

Play mtvU's game "Darfur is Dying" to find out. From the comfort of your computer, you may just find that your avatar becomes another of the the hundreds of thousands lost to genocide in Darfur.

In Darfur, Sudan, genocide is raging.

Every day, government-backed militias kill, torture, and rape people, and burn villages to the ground. It's hard to visualize what life is like for those who survive. Playing this game can help.

And awareness can stir your conscience and breed action. So play, then take action to end the genocide in Darfur. Find out how UUSC can help you through our Drumbeat for Darfur campaign.