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SOCIAL ACTION /SAN DIEGO WALK FOR DARFUR
Quick Links:
Walk for Darfur Photo Page
Team CBI's Contributions to the Walk
Supporting People of Darfur, International Medical Corps
Judy Fisher's Speech at the Rally
Rabbi Lee T. Bycel's Speech at the Rally
Team CBI's Contributions to the Walk
More than 241 Team CBI members raised more than $21,000 for the International Medical Corps as part of the San Diego Walk for Darfur held the morning of November 19th at Balboa Park. At the rally, Team CBI won the award for being the largest team at the Walk and Tom Fisher, CBI member, won the highest fundraising award.
Many other CBI members were instrumental in organizing the first San Diego Walk for Darfur: Judy Fisher, CBI board member, was the chairperson for the Walk; Ami Minteer, a member of the CBI Tikkun Olam/Social Action Committee, organized the logistics at Balboa Park; Gladie Jaffe, also a CBI board member, coordinated the Walk website and provided insight from being the chair of the CBI Shalom Walks; Anita Hosenpud coordinated our corporate and individual sponsors that underwrote the Walk; Gail and Marshall Littman, new members of CBI, also served on the Walk committee and helped in various capacities. Representatives from Temple Emanu-El, Temple Solel, Temple Adat Shalom and Havurah Shir Ha Yam and other groups served on the committee that has regularly met since January to plan the Walk. The original goal of the Walk was for 1,000 people to attend and to raise $50,000. We have almost doubled that goal!
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San Diegans Walk to Support People of Darfur, International Medical Corps
What began as a grass roots effort by one woman to help the people of Darfur, Sudan, grew to include almost two thousand. Nearly 1,800 people participated in the San Diego Walk for Darfur, which raised approximately $95,000 to benefit International Medical Corps programs in Darfur and neighboring Chad.
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| Benson Deng, Lee Bycel, and others |
"This walk has gotten us to talk about Darfur in our homes, at our dinner tables, in our schools, in our churches, synagogues and our mosques," said Judy Fisher, who chaired the event. "We all walked together as a community to say we protest what is happening in Darfur. We all walked together to help people who have no voice or power."
Fisher was motivated to help the people of Darfur after attending a conference in Washington, DC almost two years ago. Before heading home, she and a friend toured the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. As they were leaving, she was struck by a quote from Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel: "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference." She looked down and saw a pamphlet about Darfur. The idea grew from there.
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| Judy Fisher, Event Chair and CBI Board Member, with Lee Bycel of IMC |
"I think of the many Darfurians I have met who have walked from their destroyed communities and ravaged lives to Chad. I think of the two and a half million who have been displaced from their homes in Darfur and really spend every day walking, and walking – looking for a safe haven in the sub-Saharan desert," said Lee Bycel, IMC's Senior Adviser for Global Strategy, addressing the crowd.
"Today, we are telling them that we know they are more than statistics that they are human beings, and they are not just victims of hatred and evil – but beneficiaries of the goodness of so many people, of the inextinguishable humanity that drives us to be here – and that most of the people in the world does possess," Bycel added.
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| Benson Deng, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan |
The three kilometer walk ended in San Diego's historic Balboa Park, where a post-walk rally included remarks by Benson Deng, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, now a San Diego resident, and music by Sudanese refugee Ajieng Chol.
"When people come together and want to make a difference they can," said Fisher who emphasized that this was an all-volunteer run event. A group of about 10 people were on the core organizing committee, which doubled in the last few months. Approximately 100 people volunteered on the day of the walk, staffing the registration tables, placing route markers, cleaning up and other activities.
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| Walkers on the Cabrillo Bridge |
Fisher chose International Medical Corps as the event beneficiary because it was already on the ground providing direct services to those who need it most with proven success.
Nearly three million people have been affected by violence in Darfur, triggering what is widely viewed as the worst humanitarian crisis in recent years. Despite the insecurity and chaos in the region, IMC continues to build clinics and serve those affected by the fighting.
IMC currently operates seven primary health centers and two mobile clinics in Darfur, aimed at improving access to health care services. IMC recently built a clinic in West Darfur, where access to health care is extremely limited. IMC is also restoring and restocking derelict health stations, abandoned during the early days of the conflict, to encourage displaced people to return to their homes. In addition to its comprehensive efforts in Darfur, IMC has undertaken an emergency intervention program to provide basic health services to refugees and displaced people in neighboring Chad.
Bycel thanked the participants for their support. "We are deeply grateful to the people of San Diego for showing their concern and commitment. They have truly demonstrated the ability of people of conscience to make a difference," he said. Indeed the people of San Diego have made a difference by supporting IMC in its life saving work.
The event's website, www.SanDiegoWalkforDarfur.org, will be accepting donations until the end of the year.
This article originally appeared on the International Medical Corps website. Thank you to the IMC for allowing us to reproduce it here.
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Judy Fisher's Speech for the San Diego Walk for Darfur
November 19, 2006
Thank you, Jessica, It's so wonderful that you took your time to be here today as our MC.
It is my honor to welcome you today to the San Diego Walk for Darfur!
I applaud you for being here to make your voices heard against injustice and indifference. We will not stand idly by while our brothers and sisters suffer in Darfur and now in Chad.
We are all choosing to make a difference by being here today.
I applaud all of us for coming together to raise our San Diego community's awareness about the tragic situation in Darfur. This walk has gotten us to talk about Darfur in our homes, at our dinner tables, in our schools, in our churches, synagogues and our mosques.
We all walked together as a community to say we protest what is happening in Darfur. We all walked together to help people who have no voice or power. We have power. We are empowering ourselves.
I must thank a most amazing volunteer committee who made the San Diego Walk for Darfur a reality. If you are wearing a green shirt, please wave!
Let's all give them a big cheer because this walk and rally could not have happened without them!
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I would like to give special thanks to a few people:
To Ami Minteer, my logistics coordinator for Balboa Park – from permits to porta-potties, you did it all. Thank you!
To Gladie Jaffe, who did our amazing website, www.SanDiegoWalkforDarfur.org
To my husband, Tom Fisher, my emotional support and partner.
Now, I would like to share some statistics with you: We had one thousand one hundred thirty seven walkers registered on 55 teams as well as individual walkers as of 9:00 p.m. last night and that doesn't count how many more we registered today.
I apologize to those of you who registered today who did not receive a t-shirt. We had no idea that so many more would come out today. When I had to order a thousand shirts on November 6th we only had about 500 people registered. Ami and I had a discussion about how much garage space we each had to store the boxes of shirts we may have left over. Registrations increased so fast during the last two weeks that I had to place another order last Thursday for 200 more shirts! That's 1200 shirts we ordered for the Walk. So, I'm sorry that you didn't get a shirt, but know that all of your registration fee will go directly to the International Medical Corps, which is why we're here today.
On the website as of 9:30 last night, we have raised more than $75,000 for the International Medical Corps and that doesn't include how much more we have raised today!
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We also raised more than $10,000 in corporate and individual sponsors to underwrite the cost of the Walk so that almost all of our fundraising dollars can go to the International Medical Corps to fund their humanitarian work in Darfur and Chad. Thank you to all of our generous sponsors! Without them and other anonymous individual sponsors, this walk would not have been possible.
I would also like to thank American Jewish World Service, our host non-profit sponsor, which enabled us to have this walk in Balboa Park.
It is now my privilege to give out a few awards this morning for special achievement. Please see me afterward to pick up your certificate.
Second Highest Fundraising Award goes to: Willow Craven
Highest Fundraising Award goes to someone who has never fundraised before. I know this for a fact because I've been married to him for the last 28 years: Tom Fisher
Second Largest Team Award goes to: Temple Emanu-El
Largest Team Award goes to: Congregation Beth Israel with more than 240 people!
Thank you all for coming today and for continuing to help the people of Darfur tomorrow. You will be hearing more about how to do that in a few minutes from Rabbi Bycel. My goal for today is for you to feel the power of coming together as a caring community. Look what we can accomplish when we come together. Look at the difference we have made today and will continue to make tomorrow.
To sum up, I read a quote on the back of a t-shirt at last year's Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk that really empowered me. I want to share it with you because I hope that one of you will be inspired by it to continue this work–to become an activist. This is the quote: "I kept waiting for someone to make a difference, and then I realized that I am someone."
I want to read it again. "I kept waiting for someone to make a difference, and then I realized that I am someone."
you are also someone! Thank you!
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Rabbi Lee T. Bycel's Speech at the San Diego Walk for Darfur
What an incredible statement. Nearly 2000 people here in Balboa Park this morning – 2000 people who are saying that we have a conscience, that the world does care, that we will do everything possible to help the people of Darfur. This morning we feel the pulse of humanity beating very strong. I felt it this morning when I met Morgan, an 8 year old girl who sold lemonade and cookies to raise money for the people of Darfur. I feel that strong pulse of humanity when I see each of you and the commitment that you have made by being here this morning.
I am deeply grateful to the exceptional leadership of Judy Fisher and her talented and devoted committee for making it possible for us to come together and to express our soliditarity with the people of Darfur. They have allowed us to take our feelings of outrage, disbelief and anger about the unfolding nightmare of Darfur – and channel them into something positive through the walk and through our raising funds for critically needed humanitarian aid. On behalf of International Medical Corps I thank you for being our partner – for allowing us to provide critically needed medical aid to hundreds of thousands of people, for supporting our efforts to provide medicine, food and water to the most vulnerable, for standing with us in our work to restore lives, to rebuild communities. Since our inception in 1984 IMC has been with the dispossessed, the forgotten, with those victims of natural disaster or man made tragedy, wherever they may be. The humanitarian impulse is what drives our work – the mandate that being human means not just feeling the pain of our fellow human pains but actively dong something to alleviate the anguish and to stop the suffering.
Martin Luther King reminded us that: "The ultimate test of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and moments of convenience, but where he stands in moments of challenge and moments of controversy."
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We stand today at a critical moment. We stand at this moment in history where we have an opportunity to pass that ultimate test. We stand at this moment where we demonstrate that we have a conscience and that we are willing to translate our ideals into action. This morning we walked by choice, by the impulse do what is right, to help, to do what is just – I think of the many Darfurians I have met who have walked from their destroyed communities and ravaged lives to Chad. I think of the two and a half million who have been displaced from their homes in Darfur and really spend every day walking, and walking – looking for a safe haven in the sub-Saharan desert. I can see their eyes, I can hear their voices, I can feel their yearnings.
This morning, we walk with Fatimah and Adam and all the other people I have met in Darfur and Chad – who are at the core no different than you and me. All they want is peace, all they want is to return to their homes, all they want is food and water, all they want is some security and peace for their children. Yet they are the victims – of the old story once again, man's brutality to man, man's inhumanity to man. Today, we are telling them that we know they are more than statistics that they are human beings, and they are not just victims of hatred and evil – but beneficiaries of the goodness of so many people, of the inextinguishable humanity that drives us to be here – and that most of the people in the world does possess. Today we are telling them that the world really meant the words – Never Again. Not Sometimes Again, but Never Again.
Today gives me hope. Today reminds me that if we work together – that the goodness and humanity in the world can eradicate the evil and the inhumanity.
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Today we took several steps. The challenge will still be us tomorrow. Let us continue the walk – each and every day, until this horrific nightmare is brought to an end.
I have always been moved by the words of Walt Whitman: "That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse, what will your verse be?"
I ask today what will your verse be? What will our verse be – the verse of the civilized world? Indeed that is what we have done this morning; we have added our verses of hope and our commitment to provide humanitarian aid. Let us strengthen our resolve to add more verses of deep commitment and let us be strengthened in our resolve to add our verse – a verse of conscience, commitment and action. That is a verse that will be heard around the world. This is a verse that will be our legacy. This is a verse that makes it clear that in the twenty first century that we truly meant the words never again – for any people, for any person, wherever he or she lives on the face of this earth.
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