Your messages of love and activism that we share with refugees often bring tears and smiles to the faces of our friends who have suffered for five years. It is your words and images that provide them with the essential human connection that gets lost in the isolated desert. Without your messages, they would lose hope all together.Please leave a comment below for our friends in the camps, and we will pass them on each day. Our field team will check back daily for message to share with the refugees they meet.

In i-ACT tradition, we’ll be hosting the i-ACT challenge again! i-ACT is all about action, so every day we hope the stories from the camps will inspire everyone to take part in our daily actions. We’d like to show our appreciation to all i-ACTivists who follow Gabriel, Katie-Jay, Scott and Colin on their journey and participate in the daily actions. When you watch the video daily, one of the words in the action will be in BOLD. That word will only remain bold on that day, so write it down and keep it somewhere safe! At the end of i-ACT 5, submit your list of words to us by sending an e-mail to challenge@stopgenocidenow.org for a chance to win autographed Bonnie Raitt Darfur hats! We’ll also be sending everyone paritcipating an i-ACTivist e-certificate.

We look forward to your entries!

Feels strange to be back in the same airport, headed back to the same city that I left by military plane last February. I guess that is expected however, the strange feeling, the surreal emotions; we really are going back. Most people would have processed that before we purchased the tickets, or even last night when we were trying to squeeze 100 pounds of stuff into two bags. I’m just trying to focus on the present reality.My reality is one that is vastly different than that of our friends in the camps. When I had the privilege of returning home to my comforts, and friends, Fatne remained with her seven children. For the past four months I have feasted on rich foods of my choice, while Darfuri food rations have been decreased to 1200 calories a day. As I walked the streets of various cities freely, speaking my mind about the world’s atrocities, new arrivals and veterans in Camp Kounoungo were threatened with increased violence that shows itself in the form of three dead gendarime and an aid worker just in the last month.

Now is the time if ever, we need our voices, and the voices of our entire community to shout to the world – WE WILL NOT STAND IDLY BY. THIS CANNOT CONTINUE. We need to shake our neighbors, show our leaders, and demand that ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity end. This is a moral issue that bridges politics, religion, race and culture. If we allow one group to be persecuted because they are who they are, then who will save us from the same persecution. If we let this continue, we have failed our values, and humanity.

As my blood begins to rise writing these words, I look around. An impeccably clean, white, sterile environment for travelers to come and go freely; an icon of the Western world and our separation from the realities that people live today. 33 million displaced people worldwide – 3 million of those living inside of Darfur, huddled next to 3 large cities, most without tents or organized camps, ¼ of a million where we will be in days.

For now, I will join the iconic ivory tower, and drink my last good espresso and get Gabriel his last diet coke. Hard to not think about the privilege associated with even this.

It is strange that Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris now feels so familiar. I have been here five times. The plane was full of American tourists, excited about going to see the tower, the arch, and as much as their devalued dollars can get them to. For me, all I know is the airport.

I did get rest and relax for a few hours at a Paris hotel, after being evacuated from Chad to Gabon and then to here last February. You have no idea how good it felt to take a shower, rest in a bed, and eat some really good food. It’s not like we had spent months or even weeks in danger and discomfort. It was only a few days, but the exhaling relaxation that I felt when getting to Paris was huge.

This “returning” feels a little like the first time I went to Chad and the refugee camps. There’s unknowns, both about the country and about myself. The coup that hit the city in February destroyed buildings and lives. It got close to us, but we got out. I’m not sure how it’s going to feel being back at Le Meridien Hotel, where bullets were flying the last time we were there. The refugees out in the east have continued to experience so much instability and uncertainty. We will have to be flexible and ready to adapt to the situation on the ground, as we work through our “mission” of daily webcasts, journals, and connecting communities from one side of the world to the other.

For now, I’m comfortably sitting at this same Paris airport, where for the fifth time I’m drinking my last diet soda before flying out to Chad.

Paz,
Gabriel

Hi all,

Colin and I have just arrived in N’djamena, Chad, and are just getting accustomed with the pretty robust heat! I just wanted to take a little time to introduce myself as we get ready to go to the refugee camps.

I’m currently a senior at Brown University, in Rhode Island, and spent a lot of my childhood living around the world, mostly in Latin America and Africa. I became really interested in the Darfur crisis during high school, and helped form my STAND chapter at Brown, participating in several divestment, advocacy, and awareness campaigns. During the last year, I was the Student Director of STAND, a Student Anti-Genocide Coalition, working with over 800 chapters across the country on Darfur activism.

Throughout my entire activism career, I’ve been frustrated that so much of my efforts have been centered around the world of g-mail and phone calls. It’s hard to continually stay motivated and know if our efforts are making a difference. Thus, I’m incredibly lucky and grateful for the opportunity in front of us. I think our activism can be more effective when we listen to the actual people affected by the crisis. It is my hope that, over the next two weeks, we’ll be able to give the many refugees a voice, and inspire you to take more action. This crisis has gone on too long, and we all have an important role to play in ending it.

I recognize that we’re pretty lucky to be able to do this, so please let us know if there’s anything specific you’d like us to talk or write about. I’m looking forward to hearing from all of you!

I’m sitting in Le Meredian hotel right now in N’Djamena. Having followed i-ACT4 and seeing Gabriel and KTJ during the coup here, it feels a bit weird. I’m trying to do as much mental preparation, but as the i-ACT team found out last time, it’s hard to know what to expect. The most I can do right now is focus on getting out to the camps and doing the best we can to give you all a feel for what it’s like there.

Reporting on the conditions in the camps and the stories of refugees is so important, especially when media coverage of their stories is often scarce or insufficient. However, as ACTivists, what is even more important is to turn this information into action. Thankfully, the whole i-ACT team has been working hard to make this easier for you, and we’ll be providing actions for you all to get involved in during our 12 day trip.

As a student activist, I feel especially lucky to be a part of this trip. Working with high schoolers in the organization “STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition,” I had the incredible opportunity to see dedicated and inspiring activism through the United States. Frustratingly, this was rarely coupled with real stories from those we were trying to help. i-ACT5 provides just this combination, and Scott and I are glad to be representatives of the thousands of hard working students back home. I’m confident that our student constituency will be active during our trip.

Scott and I are coming off of a two week trip in which we visited Zimbabwe and Kenya, two countries impacted by political violence in the wake of elections. It was very frustrating to see how governments can selfishly neglect their own people with little repercussions. What’s even more sad though, is that Sudan’s abuses make those in Kenya and Zimbabwe seem small (and they’re not!). It will be even more sad to get the human perspective of what this does to individuals and families in Sudan, but I think it is essential for the movement that all of you are leading. Now let’s do our best to make sure that Sudan’s leaders can’t continue this awful campaign without some serious repercussions.

In peace,

Colin