Crisis in Congo

I personally don't know too much about the current humanitarian crisis going on in Congo, but I'm learning more and it really saddens me. Just today I saw a collection of pictures from the amazing photoblog "The Big Picture" that puts faces to the numbers. The pictures are beautiful, tragic, and sometimes a bit graphic, but definitely worth viewing.

This video from Condition: Critical (an awesome Doctors Without Borders webpage) tells more about what's going on:

What can you do? Get educated, spread the word, donate to Doctors Without Borders, or investigate the situation yourself and figure out another way to help (and let us all know too!)

Save Darfur!

Today we heard about one of the largest ongoing human rights tragedies of our time, the Darfur Genocide. We heard from two awesome representatives from the BYU/UVU Darfur Action Committee (Facebook group) about the history of the conflict there and also what we can do to help stop it. We talked about the awesome Save Darfur website, and specifically the things you can do to help listed in the Current Initiatives section.

As pointed out at the meeting today, the situation there is unique in that it is the first genocide ever to be recognized as such while it is going on, rather than looking back afterwards and going "Whoops, that was genocide, huh?" as happened with Nazi Germany, Rwanda, and basically every other genocide in history. So now that we're not in the denial stage, we can do something about it!

Next week, we'll be talking about the situation in Burma, which is also an ongoing nightmare. Same time and place: Wednesday, 6 pm, 117 HRCB. See ya there!

Opening Social!

We had our opening social Thursday, and it was pretty awesome. Sure, the tech side of the meeting didn't come together so we ended up video-less, but that just means you can watch the introductory movie whenever you want and however many times you want here:



Carl Hoiland, our beloved club President, led us through an overview of what Amnesty International is and how we can learn more about the issues, engage in dialogue, and make a difference--all right here in Provo. Between munching on delicious fresh fruit and chips/salsa, we came up with topics that we all decided would be important to get involved with. They include, but are not limited to:

• The War on Terror/Torture


• Genocide (e.g. Darfur)


• Domestic violence


• The Death Penalty


• Human trafficking


• Child Soldiers


• LGBT Rights


• Euthanasia

And that's just what I could remember off the top of my head! The point is, there's a lot of human rights issues that need our attention and this semester is going to be an amazing opportunity to put charity into practice and make our world better.

So what do you think? What would you like to see the club doing this semester? Was the food okay? Do you know anybody who would be good to have come in and speak to the club? Leave a comment here on this post and let us know, because this is YOUR club!