Speaker Announcement!

We are proud to announce that Dr. Mukesh Kapila will be joining us as a speaker on Saturday, June 8, 2013! 

Dr. Kapila is best known as the whistle blower on the genocide in Sudan. In 2003, he was the head of the United Nations in Sudan, where he was receiving information on a daily basis about the horrific crimes being committed. Alarmed and angered that officials were not paying attention or taking action, he knew he had to do something drastic. Dr. Kapila refused to be a bystander and decided to go to the media to let the world know what was going on in Sudan, knowing full well that this action would probably cost him his career. On a live television interview, he referred to Darfur as “the greatest scandal and tragedy of our time” and accused the Sudanese government of “ethnic cleansing on an inconceivably vast scale”.  He soon afterward resigned from the United Nations and continues today to raise awareness of ongoing genocide and mass atrocities. He is a Special Representative on Crimes Against Humanity at Aegis Trust and a Professor at the University of Manchester. Watch this amazing short, three-minute video of Dr. Kapila’s journey and be sure to watch him speak at the National Mall installation on June 8, 2013.

We are also so excited to announce Eva Kor as a speaker for Sunday's Candlelight Vigil!

Eva Mozes Kor is a survivor of the Holocaust, a forgiveness advocate, and a revered public speaker. Powered by a never-give-up attitude, Eva has emerged through a life filled with trauma as a brilliant example of the power of the human spirit to overcome. She is a community leader, a champion of human rights, and tireless educator of young people.

In 1944, Eva and her family were loaded into a cattle car packed with other Jewish prisoners and transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Eva and her twin sister Miriam were just 10 years old. At Auschwitz, the girls were ripped apart from their mother, father and two older sisters, never to see any of them ever again. Eva and Miriam became part of a group of children used as human guinea pigs in genetic experiments, under the direction of the now-infamous Dr. Josef Mengele. Approximately 1,500 sets of twins were abused, and most died as a result of these experiments. Eva herself became gravely ill, but through sheer determination, she stayed alive and helped Miriam survive. Approximately 200 children were found alive by the Soviet Army at the liberation of the camp on January 27, 1945. The majority of the children were Mengele twins. Eva and Miriam Mozes were among them.

In 1995, Eva opened CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terre Haute, Indiana, with a mission to prevent prejudice and hatred through education about the Holocaust. Thousands of people, including many school groups, have visited CANDLES since it opened. In 2003, the museum was destroyed by a hate-filled arsonist. Eva vowed to rebuild, and with the help of a generous public outpouring of support, the museum was rebuilt and reopened in 2005.

Eva has delivered her message all over the world, including several times in Germany, Israel, and Poland, and was a featured speaker at the 10^th anniversary of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. Her story is documented in the award-winning film Forgiving Dr. Mengele and the popular young adult book Surviving the Angel of Death: The Story of a Mengele Twin in Auschwitz. Eva is an advocate for genocide prevention, having organized and participated in multiple projects dedicated to ending the genocide in Darfur and commemorating the Rwandan genocide. She has worked with fellow forgiveness advocate Kizito Kalima, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide and founder of the Amahoro Peace Project in Indianapolis, Ind.

www.candlesholocaustmuseum.org

Nicole Moore is not your average high school English teacher, she is constantly seeking ways to bring the global community into her classroom; and her classroom to the global community. Nicole traveled to what is now South Sudan in 2010, to help create primary and secondary education curriculum for teachers in Marial Bai along with other volunteer teachers. This trip made Nicole reflect on the fact that not all Americans will get the opportunity to travel in conflict areas and what can she do, as an educator, to share these experiences?

Nicole was part of the last Carl Wilkens Fellowship class in 2011, a fellowship offered by the former Genocide Intervention Network, named in honor of Carl Wilkens, the only American to remain in Rwanda during the genocide. During that following summer she traveled with Carl Wilkens and a group for teachers to Rwanda to learn more about their past. One of the interviews she conducted was with Adele, (no, not the singer), who survived a massacre at a local church and the forgiveness she offered to the man who killed her husband, the man who murdered her son; who also tried to kill her, Louis. She accepted Louis into her home to care for him, facing scrutiny from her neighbors often saying she was a “crazy person”. To this day, Louis often visits her with his wife and children. To view the full interview, which you know you want to, click here.

I asked Nicole about her experiences of doing the One Million Bones project as an educator and this is what she said:

“The work of One Million Bones and Students Rebuild is incredibly important, and fits so well into the work my students engage in and the mission of the school I work at. So often, while students study events such as the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide, they ask if genocides have happened since, and many teachers are not equipped with the time or knowledge to fully answer that question. The One Million Bones Project gives students this information, as well as the critical aspect of an action item, with which to grapple with the concepts of contemporary genocide and US foreign policy. Abstract concepts are given tangible shape through this project, and students have a concrete experience to anchor their understanding of large and potentially scary events. I'm grateful for my relationship with OMB and SR because their work directly expands my work as a teacher, and thus directly impacts the lives of students.”

This is Nicole’s second year at Notre Dame High School in San Jose, California and the second year making bones with her students. I asked her how her school has reacted to the implementation of the project there and beamed about how supportive they’ve been. The entire school, not just Nicole’s students have taken the project on, creating a model that she has been able to offer other educators, many of who have successfully implemented! Nicole is worked closely with the Museum of the Africa Diaspora for a community wide event that was held yesterday, February 23, 2013, below are some pictures:

 

If you’re in the bay area and have an interest in making bones with Nicole, email her!

Recently, In the DRC, Washington, D.C. and Oregon...

As you all know, the conflict in the DRC has been ongoing for years. Three weeks ago, the Rebel Group in Congo, M23, invaded Goma and forced out the Congolese army. During the invasion, 130,000 people were evacuated and displaced into make shift shelters around Goma, and countless women and children have suffered from acts of sexual violence. Despite the withdrawal of M23 on December 1^st, the effects of the invasion are still ongoing.

CARE, one of our partners in the Students Rebuild Challenge, has staff working on the ground in these makeshift camps. The bravery of the Congolese people is evident and can be seen in the pictures below:

Sabine Wilke/CARESabine Wilke/CARE

Sabine Wilke/ CARE

The Rebel Group, M23’s invasion has brought the DRC back into the media spotlight once again and the need for collective and effective emergency relief efforts is evident. Yesterday, Congress held a hearing about Eastern Congo where experts like John Prendergast (Co-founder of the Enough! Project), The Honorable Johnnie Carson (U.S. Ambassador and Assistant Secretary, the Bureau of African American Affairs at the State Department), Steve Hege (Former member of the United Nations Group of Experts on the DRC) and Mvemba Dizolele (Stanford University), urged President Obama to take a tougher stance against Rwanda for supporting the M23 Rebels. You can also express your concern about the DRC to our leaders; call Ambassador Rice and tell her that the Congo needs our help, like Gavin did. Gavin is our Oregon Coordinator, Alysha Atma’s son, who called Ambassador Rice last night after the hearing and urged her to protect his brothers and sisters in the Congo. If Gavin can do it, we can all do it. 

Make a bone today in honor of Gavin’s courage, the bravery of the Congolese people, the compassion and strength of CARE’s field staff and stand together with us for Peace in Congo and all over the world.  

TALLAHASSEE: 'TAKING THE SKELETONS OUT OF THE CLOSET'

Our amazing partners at Students Rebuild caught up last week with Jane McPherson about the Road to Washington Tallahassee installation. See what Zac Taylor, originally from Florida himself, had to say about the installation:

After discovering the One Million Bones project last year, Jane McPherson of Tallahassee, Florida was compelled to establish a Tallahassee chapter. To date, Jane and her students at the Florida State University College of Social Work have helped to organize over 40 events at venues ranging from public schools to evening art walks to the local ice cream shop. All told, the group has crafted over 7,400 bones for the One Million Bones challenge, raising more than $7,400 for CARE’s relief work in Somalia and the DR Congo. Join us as we catch up with Jane and learn a little bit more about her inspiring efforts in Tallahassee! 

Teaching human rights through community practice 

A long-time social worker and community practitioner, Jane has long held an interest in teaching human rights through community practice. After several months of organizing bone making workshops in Tallahassee, Jane decided to incorporate the social arts practice element of the One Million Bones challenge in her spring course at Florida State University.  As a PhD student and educator in the College of Social Work, she felt the project offered the perfect platform for talking with her students about how the practice of social work is embedded in a complex world

For Jane, the universality of an arts project like One Million Bones was the perfect vehicle for her students to not only consider how foreign concepts like genocide and mass violence are linked to everyday crimes (like bullying and hate speech), but to have a conversation with the greater Tallahassee community about their class lessons through art. 



  

One of the first bone making events Jane’s students organized was in the garden at Tallahassee’s LeMoyne Center for Visual Arts. Mukweso Mwenene, a Congolese businessman living in Tallahassee, showed up at the event to make bones.

At first, Jane wasn't sure how Mwenene would feel about the project. She asked him, “Do you think this matters?”

Mukweso’s response astonished Jane: “He said, ‘In my country, the skeletons are all in the closet. The rulers and the former rulers all bear terrible responsibility for crimes and no one sees those crimes. The evidence is completely hidden. When you make these bones, take these bones and put them out in public, then people can see for the first time the evidence of these crimes… This is the way that I think change will happen.’”

April 28: Laying out the Bones

Last April, organizers in 34 states held bone laying events in their state capitals. (On the Students Rebuild blog, we’ve been sharing highlights from events across the country – check them out!) In Tallahassee, over 150 folks gathered under Bloxham Park’s oak trees to lay the 6,500+ bones crafted by Tallahassee students and their families.

Early on the morning of April 28, Jane and her students unpacked the bones and laid them in two piles. At 11:30 AM, a 60’-long black carpet was rolled through the center of the park and folks lined up and waited respectfully for their turn to lay bones.

 

 

With music playing in the background, the crowd filled the park, joined hands around the installation, and welcomed a few words from Jane and invited guests. Mukweso Mwenene joined the speakers in offering a powerful reflection on the day’s event: “Bones are like the skeletons in the closet. Our rulers and leaders have never recognized these skeletons and people are bringing them to the air asking people to ask for change.”

For Jane’s students – many of whom helped to organize recent bone making workshops – seeing the bones in public was a deeply personal and transformative experience. Florida State senior Melise Brown told the Tallahassee Democrat that “this project really set me on fire; I don’t know how anyone cannot have a heart about genocide and I wanted to bring it to (the F.S.U. community).” An inspired Melise told the Tallahassee Democrat that she hopes to find work with a human rights organization after graduating.

You can see footage from One Million Bones: Tallahassee’s event in this fantastic 3-minute clip directed by Tallahassee filmmaker Nick Staab:

So what’s next for Jane and One Million Bones: Tallahassee? McPherson is working with students to establish the chapter as an official student organization on campus. She hopes to further equip her students to lead conversations – and bone making workshops – in the Tallahassee community.

In the meantime, Jane’s looking to World Refugee Day as a way to broaden participation in the One Million Bones project. “You see these bones and you see the violence. But all of the living people who carry the scars of genocide are less visible.” We’ll be following Jane’s efforts closely and sharing the latest as it happens.




Photo: Giggle Bin Photography 

North Carolina Re-Cap

Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Carl Wilkens Fellow, Scott Sutton who partnered with sculptor, Mitch Lewis to produce the Raleigh installation for the Road to Washington Campaign. Speaking with Scott about the different aspects they incoporated into their installation and how they personalized it for their community really hit home the point that this project in many ways, belongs to us all.

Scott and Mitch were able to engage local high schools and colleges and within the first three weeks of coming on board as organizers they created the first 1,000 bones of their 1,500 bones installation.

Despite Prom and upcoming finals, thirty students came to Pullen Park on that Sunday morning to lay down the bones they had made. To begin, everyone gathered as volunteers read aloud stories of struggle and survival from the Holocaust, Armenian genocide, Rwandan genocide, Darfur genocide and the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. To honor these victims and survivors, they began to silently lay down bones.

After all the bones had been laid, the group took a moment of silence over the bones before Janessa Goldbeck, spokesperson fro Make US Strong and cycling 4,200 miles from coast-to-coast to spread the word that international development (foreign aid) keeps us safe (you can learn more about Janessa and her journey here).

Scott incorporated a photo petition in to the installation.  4x6 professional photos of the installation taken by Laura Collins (2011 Carl Wilkens Fellow) surrounded by handwritten pleas to their Representatives to sign the Sudan Peace, Security and Accountability Act of 2012. Scott plans to deliver these framed petitions himself.

Although they had seen our 50,000 Bones Preview Installation Video, they still couldn’t wrap their heads around what 1,000 bones would look like.  They took a moment of silence around the bones and shared the feelings they were experiencing with one another, “It brought gravity to this situation and a sense of urgency, I mean, if this is only a thousand bones and we’re having such a reaction – think of the mass graves filled with thousands of people constantly being found – we must do something” Scott reflected to me.