Stella Kenyi's blog
Tracy McGrady and Ted Leonsis Team with Georgetown, Duke Students to Build Darfuri Refugee School
To commemorate UN World Refugee Day on June 20, Georgetown and Duke Universities’ students and alumni, businessman Ted Leonsis, and NBA star Tracy McGrady, have jointly announced that they have raised funds to sponsor a Darfuri refugee camp school in Chad. Georgetown and Duke Universities launched a partnership to support the Darfuri schools at their January 30 basketball game at the Verizon Center. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were among the fans in attendance, along with Leonsis and McGrady.
Centaurus High School Students Form Ties with Darfuri Refugees
Students at Centaurus High School in Lafayette, Colorado have joined the Darfur Dream Team’s Sister Schools Program to connect with their peers in refugee camps in Chad. After teaching a lesson on genocide, language arts teacher Terry Fostvedt noticed her students were especially interested in the crisis in Darfur. “They were understandably overwhelmed and shocked by the information about what’s going on,” said Fostvedt.
Huntington Beach High School Hosts Rally for Darfur
On March 11, 2010, students at Huntington Beach High School in California held a rally on campus to raise awareness about the crisis in Darfur. The event, which was sponsored by the school’s Operation Save Darfur Club, featured a speech and book signing by the authors of They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky, a memoir by three Sudanese “Lost Boys” who fled to the United States to escape the violence in Darfur. The rally was part of a larger “Week for Darfur” series held in collaboration with the HB Reads program and Orange County for Darfur.
ESPN’s Darfur Dream Team Coverage Nominated for NAMIC Award
By Laura Heaton
Nominations for the NAMIC Vision Awards, recognizing news and entertainment leaders committed to producing multi-ethnic and culturally-relevant programs, were announced last week, and Enough was excited to learn that the ESPN Deportes feature highlighting the Darfur Dream Team is up for an award.
College Basketball Powerhouses Come Together for Darfur
This Saturday US college basketball powerhouses Georgetown and Duke
will face off in one of the most anticipated games of the season. While
the two teams battle on the court, students and alumni from both
universities will put aside their rivalry and come together to support
the Darfur Dream Team’s Sister Schools Program, an initiative which
links American middle schools, high schools, colleges, and universities
with sister schools in 12 refugee camps in eastern Chad.
Darfur Dream Team On The Rachel Maddow Show!
UPDATE: 31 U.S. schools have signed up for the Sister Schools Program since the show aired.
On her Wednesday show, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow interviewed Houston Rockets star Tracy McGrady and Enough’s John Prendergast about why they founded the Darfur Dream Team Sister Schools Program. Appearing in a primetime segment, McGrady and Prendergast discussed the challenges that persist in Darfur, where nearly 3 million people are displaced from their homes due to violence that began there in 2003 and continues today.
Sobering Statistics from the Darfuri Refugee Camps
As the coordinator for Darfur Dream Team Sister Schools program, I recently traveled to eastern Chad with Enough senior advisor Omer Ismail to conducted a rapid assessment in Djabal and Goz Amer, twin refugee camps located near the town of Goz Beida in eastern Chad. We spoke to Darfuri refugee populations, including sheiks, elders, parents, and youth, about the life and conditions in the camps. We also had in-depth discussions about the humanitarian emergency needs in the refugee camps with U.N. officials and various non-governmental organizations such as INTERSOS, Jesuit Refugee Service, or JRS, Oxfam Intermon, and HAIS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
