Today, over 800 student activists converged on Capitol Hill for the largest lobby day to prevent genocide in history. 

 

I would appreciate comments from NetSquared members about my project IJCentral.  With the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court charging President of Sudan Omar al-Bashir with crimes against humanity and war crimes, we are facing a paradigm shift in the battle against impunity - a reckoning for humanity. 

Mark Hayward, co-founder of Train for Humanity, sets out today from his home to participate in the Miami Man Triathlon and raise awareness (and funds) for relief in Darfur.  Train for Humanity launched this September with social media as a core aspect of communications, fundraising, and more.  I recently connected with Mark to hear more about Train for Humanity and how social media is working for them.  Learn more about Train for Humanity in the interview below or at h

While doing some consulting for Social Actions as a "Community Interpreter," I recently tried out their Social Actions Alerts that notifies you of actions (ie. volunteer opportunities, events, petitions) that interest you via email and cell. I set up a search for actions related to Darfur and have been getting 1-3 notices/week.

I thought I'd share the opportunity I got today with y'all in case who can help.  An organization called the Book Wish Foundation is looking for someone to create a widget, like Sprout, to help get the word out about their project with Darfur refugees.

Here is the listing from Idealist.org:

Flash Widget: Reading Relief for Darfur
Organization: Book Wish Foundation 

Create a flash widget (e.g., Sprout) our supporters can spread around the web, highlighting our reading relief project for Darfur refugees in eastern Chad.

Last week, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution to extend its peacekeeping mission in Darfur. The resolution passed overwhelmingly, with all countries in the council voting for it, except for the United States. A U.S. representative did not cast a vote, citing concerns about the wording of the resolution.

"The U.S. abstained in the vote because language added to the resolution would send the wrong message to Sudanese President Bashir and undermine efforts to bring him and others to justice," Alejandro Wolff said. "This council cannot ignore the terrible crimes that have occurred throughout the conflict in Darfur."

Thank you to all those who supported the Genocide Intervention Network's proposal for the NetSquared Mashup Challenge! We were honored to be nominated by the community as a 2008 Featured Project for our proposal to upgrade and extend the DarfurScores.org website:

The Genocide Intervention Network seeks to create a new website, modeled on our successful Darfur congressional scorecard, DarfurScores.org, tentatively named GenocideScores.org.

Our current plan for the site — which could change as we explore different options and hear feedback from our members — has four main components:

• Collecting together anti-genocide data, not only on Darfur but on each of our areas of concern. Instead of being limited to only legislative records, each state would list its status on other anti-genocide initiatives like Sudan divestment and genocide education.
• Provide clear illustrations of legislative status. Instead of just hearing about a bill when a member of Congress does (or doesn't) vote for it, we'll be tracking bills as they move through each chamber.
• Cross-index a bill's status with a member's location. When the latest bill on genocide prevention is up for a vote, anti-genocide activists whose members of Congress represent key votes on the legislation will be able to receive automatic alerts.
• Provide embeddable badges or widgets for activists to place on their profiles, blogs or websites. At a glance, both you and visitors to your website, blog or social networking profile will be able to see how your state and legislators are doing on the question of genocide. And when urgent action is needed, these badges will be automatically updated with a special link to take action.

Now, we want your feedback. If you have a chance, read through our proposal for DarfurScores.org and leave a comment — tell us what you like, what you think could be changed, what we're overlooking. Remember that this is all about our core mission: empowering individuals and communities with the tools to prevent and stop genocide. We hope this project will result in a valuable new tool, and we'd love to have your input!

—Ivan Boothe, Internet Strategy Coordinator for the Genocide Intervention Network

P.S. If you're interested in the work we're doing, follow us on Twitter!

No one likes to feel like they are being watched, especially if they are doing something wrong.

I attended NetSquared last year for its inaugural conference, and I wrote an introduction entitled Can Blogging Stop Genocide? If you're interested in all the details about who I am, how I got here and how it's connected to the project I'm proposing at this year's conference, check out that entry.

What I really want to focus on in this post is how to find ways to collaborate with other participants at the conference, rather than be swallowed up by the competition. But first, and quickly by way of an introduction, I'll say that the Genocide Intervention Network's mission is to:

empower individuals and communities with the tools to prevent and stop genocide.

Perhaps you can see that this fits pretty naturally with the spirit of "web 2.0" and social networking -- user-driven projects, user-generated content, network-centric advocacy, etc. As a result we've engaged in a number of such projects in the past, and happily share our experiences with other organizations.

While thousands of people board planes to visit family and friends during the holidays, Gabriel Stauring and Stacey Martino from Stop Genocide Now will be traveling to the Darfur/Chad border. Starting today, December 21st, they will share stories through daily blog entries and videos. You can see a video of stories they collected from refugees on the Darfur/Chad border during their last trip here.

As part of this awareness-raising campaign, they have issued a 14-Day Challenge. Every time you click on a day's video on the day it was posted, in the Action description, to the right of the video, there will be one word in bold. That word will remain bold for 24 hours. A new word will be bolded the next day. Viewers are asked to collect all 14 words from the 14 actions and send them to 14day@stopgenocidenow.org. If you get them all correct, you will receive an i-ACTivist e-Certificate. The first 100 participants to send the words (even if they have fewer than 14) will win a free "Humanity Before Politics" T-shirt.

You can watch the video from Day 1 here, which includes an interview with Ann Maymann, Senior Officer of the UN High Commission for Refugees. Today's action is to talk to at least five friends about the situation in Darfur and invite them to spread the word and participate.