2008 Woodie Awards
Posters illustrate global genocide horrors
Nadia Galindo
Issue date: 4/16/07 Section: News
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The posters were created by students in a world literature class as part of a class project to promote awareness about genocides past and present. Dr. Diane Plotkin, Brookhaven literature professor who teaches the class, which covers the Holocaust along with other genocides currently happening around the world, encourages her students to promote awareness about genocide.
Ashley Etier, fashion merchandising sophomore, said students in the class were given the option to create a poster or turn in a research paper.
"We knew that our research paper would not be read by anyone else except our teacher and we felt that after taking this class we needed to do something with more impact than writing a research paper," Etier said.
Melissa Hodgson, fine art sophomore and project coordinator, said, "It is so important for students to know the history of the Holocaust and other genocides so we can get involved now as a generation."
Hodgson and other students in the class said they want to inform students of the opportunities to aid people that are systematically exterminated.
"The posters are going to be disturbing and sad," Hodgson said. "It isn't going to be so happy, but as students of the next generation, now is the time to get involved."
Etier said students can e-mail and write legislators and ask them to give more money and relief to countries experiencing genocides.
Stacie Renfro, sociology sophomore, said she hopes this project will motivate students to take world literature to learn about the Holocaust and other genocides.
"This class has inspired me to review my priorities and appreciate what I have been given and my ability to help others," Renfro said.
Hodgson said 15,000 people die every month in Darfur, a province in western Sudan about the size of Texas.
She said the population in Sudan is racially mixed Muslim tribes.
According to the Web site www.savedarfur.org, 2.5 million people in Darfur fled from their homes running from torture, rape and murder.
As a result, these people face starvation and disease daily in refugee camps.
The Web site states in early 2003 the Sudanese armed forces and an armed militia known as "Janjaweed" began a war with the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement.
The government of Sudan responded by targeting civilians and ethnic groups supporting the SLA and JEM, and millions of innocent people are killed in the process.
One poster on display compares the genocide in Darfur to the Rwanda genocide that happened over a decade ago and claimed 937,000 lives.
"If more people know about this issue, more people can donate food, clothing, money, time, anything to help these people," Hodgson said.
Other posters in the S Building lobby feature genocides in Armenia, Cambodia, Iraq and Uganda.
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