As we all know well, there are dozens of crises going on in the world today. Each one is accompanied by a terrible, terrifying story illustrating exactly why this particular crisis requires our attention. In all this insanity and desperation, the worth of a human life often becomes buried in numbers and statistics. Attempting to calculate the lost beauty and potential of one human life is difficult enough, let alone tens or hundreds of thousands. It is easy to get bogged down in our own doubts and helplessness; we can’t save everyone, and it often feels as if we cannot save anyone. However, it is this very helplessness that we must strive to fight. Our attention, commitment, and compassion are required. True, not everyone can donate monetary support; however, most people can find two hours once a month to attend a vigil or hand out flyers or write a letter to a local congressman. You see, while it is true that we cannot help other people without learning how to heal ourselves, that is only a piece of the picture. If we are incapable of reaching outside of ourselves to help those who need us, no amount of healing can ever make us whole.

Every month, tens of thousands of innocent people die in the Sudan because they have had the misfortune of being born possessing the wrong skin color. Since President General al-Bashir’s takeover in 1989, various opposition groups have risen against the government’s dictatorship. The people of the south who do not support the Islamic law instituted by the government have responded by arming the nomadic militiamen called the Janjaweed. The Janjaweed are a part of the Arabic minority that includes the government. The Janjaweed stands accused of such horrors as mass rapes and executions. The two million people left homeless by the situation have been forced to live in makeshift camps lacking adequate food and water. The militiamen in charge of the camps are often the very same men who have rendered the people living there homeless in the first place. In addition to the threat of starvation, women live under constant terror of rape.

Every year when we celebrate Holocaust Remembrance Day we say a prayer for our fallen and promise ourselves, “this will never happen again.” Never again will millions of people die while the world sits back and does nothing. It is fifty years later, and the count is 400,000 dead, two million displaced, and counting.

I would hate to think that we have become a part of that world that sits idly by as thousands of people are dying because it takes too much effort to act.

So, what can we do?
Dear Sudan, Love, Contra Costa County was begun in Petaluma as a local effort to send humanitarian relief to Darfur and to raise awareness about the conflict. The group in Petaluma wanted to raise enough money to feed a number of refugees equaling the population of Petaluma for one day—55,000 people, at 16 cents per person. They surpassed this goal, and the organization has since expanded to include all of Contra Costa County and scattered areas throughout North America. We as a community can raise money, attend vigils sponsored by Contra Costa County, buy wristbands to help raise awareness, phone our local congressmen demanding action, or create our own ways to help. As long as nobody speaks out, our government and the UN are not compelled to act. This is a terrible crisis, affecting those that have no voice; we must find our own hard-won voices, rusty as they are, and speak for those who are unable to do so.