CIGI Winter Cinema: Darfur Awareness Night
Co-presented with CIGI by the UW Genocide Action Group. Also sponsored by CBC Learning, Save Darfur Canada and the Canadian Centre for Genocide Education.
Free to the public. Please RSVP here.
6:00pm-7:00pm CBC Documentary: "On Our Watch"
Darfur. A word that has come to mean violence and terror, rape and murder. A killing field that splashes across the headlines. Yet the world stands by as the first genocide of the 21st century unfolds. Now, one of the largest citizen movements in decades is trying to make a difference. Celebrities are stepping into the void left by the world’s leaders. Travel with American movie star Mia Farrow to the refugee camps that are hell’s waiting room, as she struggles to comfort the afflicted and alert the world to their pain. Darfur: On Our Watch is a story of why helpless, hapless institutions cannot stop the unfathomable cruelty. It’s also an inspirational story of star-powered activists and ordinary citizens determined that genocide will not happen on their watch.
Followed by guest speakers: 7:00pm-9:00pm
Hany Besada, Senior Researcher, CIGI- Opening Remarks
Rich Hichens, President and Founder, Canadian Centre for Genocide and Human Rights Education
Deborah Bodkin, Human Rights Investigator, Darfur
Q&A
Co-sponsored by CIGI and the UW Genocide Action Group:
The University of Waterloo Genocide Action Group is an organization devoted to raising awareness about genocide and genocide prevention, with a focus on the ongoing genocide in Darfur. The club also raises funds for aid organizations supporting Darfurian refugees and internally displaced persons. UWGAG organizes conferences, film showings, letter-writing campaigns, and guest speakers to increase Darfur’s visibility, and works with other student and community groups, both on-campus and across Canada. For more information please contact us at [email protected] or visit our website at uwgag.clubs.feds.ca.
Facebook group at http://uwaterloo.facebook.com/event.php?eid=10499441090
Speaker Bio
Rich Hichens: Rich is the Founder and President of the Canadian Centre for Genocide and Human Rights Education. Rich was also Founder and President of the General Romeo Dallaire Genocide Institute, the precursor to the Centre. Rich completed his graduate studies on the Holocaust and genocide at the Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Rich has spoken widely on genocide education, including across North America and in Israel. Rich teaches at The University of Western Ontario and Fanshawe College, both in London, Ontario. Debbie Bodkin: Debbie Bodkin has been a Sergeant with the Waterloo Regional Police Service for 20 years. She has had 3 overseas experiences: In 2000 with NATO and the United Nations in Kosovo where she functioned as a Scenes of Crime Officer working at body exhumation sites and in the morgue during autopsies. In 2004 with the U.S. Organization, Coalition for Internal Justice in Chad where for two weeks she traveled to Refugee Camps and interviewed the victims who had fled from the atrocities occurring in their home country of Sudan. The results of these interviews were used by the U.S. State Dept. to declare what was happening in Darfur as a genocide. In 2004/2005 with the United Nations Commission of Inquiry for Darfur in Sudan as an investigator. She lived in Darfur for three months, searching out victims, witnesses and suspects of the horrific crimes occurring and interviewing them in order to complete the report for the United Nations. The United Nations Commission report was released and stated that Crimes Against Humanity were happening in Darfur with some involvement by the government of Sudan. Debbie now speaks regularly at various forums about her experience in Sudan and her hope of stopping the continuing plight of the people in Darfur.