Award-Winning "Darfur Drawn" Exhibit to Visit Fanshawe

From October 27 to 31, 2008, the award-winning Human Rights Watch exhibit, "Darfur Drawn: The Conflict in Darfur Through Children's Eyes", will be displayed in the Siskind Gallery in H Building at Fanshawe's London campus. A special opening reception will be held at 7:00 p.m. on Monday, October 27. The exhibit is being brought to the College by STAND Fanshawe, Students Taking Action Now: Darfur; the Social Science Forum, School of Language and Liberal Studies; and the Canadian Centre for Genocide Education.
 
Instructors who are interested in bringing their classes to view the exhibit can book an educational tour with Rich Hitchens, an instructor in the School of Language and Liberal Studies who teaches a course on genocide. Rich has coordinated two international conferences on Darfur and has spoken widely on Darfur. Class visits can be for one period or longer.

 
Since 2003, Sudanese government forces have committed numerous attacks in Darfur on the civilian populations of ethnic groups perceived to support a rebel insurgency. Countless villages have been bombed and burned, civilians have been massacred, and women and girls have been raped. Some 500,000 people have died from the violence and the conditions related to displacement, while five times that many continue to live in displaced-persons and refugee camps. Those displaced are still at risk: camps are poorly protected, and women and girls are frequently raped when they search outside the camps for firewood and food for their animals. Some observers consider Darfur to be the first genocide of the 21st century.