The Role of the United States in

Combating Human Trafficking

May 12, 2010, 9:00am – 10:30am

Introduction: Ken Gude, Director of International Justice and Security Program, Center for American Progress

Keynote: Ambassador Luis deBaca, Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Department of State

Moderator: David Abramowitz, Director of Policy and Government Relations, Humanity United

Panelists:

Ambassador Luis deBaca, Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Department of State

Holly Burkhalter, Vice President of Government Relations, International Justice Mission

Nera Misra, Global Coordinator for Human Trafficking & Migrant Worker Programs, Solidarity Center

John Norris, Executive Director, Enough

The International Labor Organization estimates at least 12.3 million adults and children are victims of forced labor, bonded labor, and commercial sexual servitude at any given moment. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 established the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the State Department to combat these forms of modern slavery. The TVPA requires an annual assessment of “severe forms of trafficking in persons” and governments’ efforts to assess them. The 2010 report will be released in June and ranks the United States for the first time. Please join us for a keynote address by Luis CdeBaca, ambassador-at-large for the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, who will preview the forthcoming report. The keynote will be followed by a discussion from a panel of experts who will address a range of issues including the report’s implications for both domestic and foreign policy and to what extent this issue is part of the State Department’s “Smart Power” approach to foreign policy. May 12, 2010, 9:00am – 10:30am Space is extremely limited.

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RSVP required. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis and not guaranteed. Breakfast will be served at 8:30 a.m.

Map & Directions Nearest Metro: Blue/Orange Line to McPherson Square or Red Line to Metro Center RSVP to attend this event For more information, call 202-682-1611.

Rescued, a documentary filmed by my friends Jonathan, Lindsey and Heidi- airs on CNN this Saturday, May 8th, at 8pm.

It’s an amazing story- and worth setting the time aside to watch.  So often we get pulled in by the shocking images of a disaster such as the recent earthquake in Haiti and can feel awash with emotions.  Many of us feel paralyzed by the overwhelming need.

However- it only takes one step forward to break us out of our paralyzed state.  Learn the story of a young girl who was compelled to move beyond seeing a need, to doing something– and how her journey to take one step at a time has led to transformed lives- hers and many others.

Watch the trailer here.

What can you do to make sure Haiti’s Children are not forgotten?

Consider hosting a viewing party- invite your friends over and talk about how you can be engaged in the lives of children in Haiti (and in your community).

DISCOVER THE RESCUED from Discover The Journey on Vimeo.

(photo by DiscoverTheJourney)

Here book book Chasing the Flame: One Man’s Fight to Save the World is a national best seller, and has now been turned in to a movie: Sergio, which airs on HBO tomorrow, May 6th 2010.  You can purchase Samantha’s book here.

Working in conflict zones from Bangladesh to Sudan, Sérgio Vieira de Mello dedicated his life to helping others. He believed in upholding human dignity, both individual and collective. As a man of action and reflection, he embodies the spirit of our work to end genocide and crimes against humanity.

Film Synopsis

Based on Pulitzer Prize-winning author Samantha Power’s biography Chasing the Flame, SERGIO revolves around the story of Sergio Vieira de Mello – the world’s “go-to guy,” a cross between James Bond and Bobby Kennedy who’d probably seen more misery, more human suffering than any man of his generation.

In the summer of 2003, Sergio, a dashing 55-year old Brazilian career diplomat, was the only senior United Nations official able to charm the notoriously anti-UN Bush Administration. Urged by President Bush, Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice and Kofi Annan to lead what was ultimately a flawed UN mission to Iraq shortly after the invasion, Sergio was the only individual who had successfully led an occupied nation towards independence…in East Timor, just two years before.

In a world where most of us want to turn away from tough problems that defy easy answers, Sergio reveled in complexity, employing the full powers of his charm and intellect to seek practical solutions that never compromised his core values.  For all his deal-making swagger, Sergio was at heart an idealist who devoted his life to the simple belief that people the world over have a basic right to live their lives with dignity.

Call in discussion following the film (organized by the Center For American Progress):

Join activists and viewers across the country this Thursday to watch the HBO premiere of “Sergio,” a powerful film about the life of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the U.N.’s top envoy in Baghdad following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and one of the most tireless and effective advocates for peace and stability the world has ever known.

Tune in to HBO Thursday, May 6 from 8-9:30 p.m. or request a free DVD copy of the film.

The Enough Project and Campus Progress have teamed up to coordinate and organize house parties across the U.S. to view and discuss the film together. A nationwide conference call will immediately follow the screening to give audience members the chance to discuss the film with special guests Samantha Power, senior director for multilateral affairs at the National Security Council, who wrote a biography of Vieira de Mello in 2008; John Prendergast, Co-founder of the Enough Project; and Greg Barker, director of “Sergio.”

Call Details:
Time: 9:35 p.m. EST (right after the HBO airing)
Dial in Number: 877.210 – 8943
Conference ID: 70957757

Click here to sign-up and learn more.

I encourage you to learn more about Resolve Uganda here and plan to participate in the GuluWalk this coming weekend.

From Resolve:

GuluWalk 2009: One Week Away!

GuluWalk takes place around the world next Saturday, October 24!

That means there’s one week left to sign-up! Or, that’s seven days to tell your friends about the walk and get them to join you! To make banners, dig out your orange gear and to become a ‘founding builder’!

By the end of next week, walkers who exceed that $500 fundraising mark online will have the chance to join GuluWalk on an all-expenses paid trip to northern Uganda. It’s that simple and right now, chances remain high you could be one of two people to receive the ‘thank-you’ of a lifetime.

Click here to sign-up or sign-in now and send out a note to friends and family over the last weekend before GuluWalk!

Also, best of luck to the three early GuluWalks taking place this weekend: Edmonton; Beijing and Chapel Hill (North Carolina).

Interest in this year’s walk has shown us that a passion for the youth in northern Uganda remains strong. Yet we need to make sure it’s a long-term commitment to sustainable development. Here’s why.

Resolve Uganda’s Mission Statement:

We are pleased to announce Genocide Intervention Network’s (GI-NET) student-led division, STAND, in collaboration with Save Darfur Coalition and The Enough Project, will bring together a powerful network of 1,000 students, community leaders and activists from across the country to Capitol Hill for the Pledge2Protect conference. The conference will be held November 6 – 9 in Washington D.C. and will educate, empower, and highlight activists who are driving the movement to prevent and stop genocide and mass atrocities. Pledge2Protect will be a forum for rigorous dialogue and exchange covering broad but carefully selected topics.

Pledge2Protect will equip activists with grassroots organizing and advocacy skills, and in-depth education/training on international conflicts of concern. Preeminent speakers and experts in the field will lead these discussions and provide their perspectives. In addition, participants will meet with their elected officials on a lobby day, November 9th , to push for key genocide prevention legislation.

Primary Goals:

Pledge2Protect seeks to create an experience for participants to empower them to become stronger leaders on their campuses and in their communities while demonstrating the strength of the movement to end genocide to policymakers on Capitol Hill.

The three-day conference will feature:

1.     Workshops: Workshops and seminars on Genocide Prevention, Activism, Sudan, Burma and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

2.     Training: Training sessions on grassroots organizing, media outreach and social media techniques, advocacy, and other fundamental activist skills.

3.     Panel Discussions: Panel discussions featuring world-renowned experts and policy makers. Invited speakers include Ambassador Susan Rice, Members of Congress, and administration officials.

4.     Networking Events: Regional activist networking events where participants can share best practices and exchange ideas.

5.     Lobby Day: Concluding the conference, will be the largest lobby day in the history of genocide prevention.

Join us for Pledge2Protect on November 6-9.

Early registration is now open, at discounted rates. Please visit www.pledge2protect.net for more information.

To protect and empower Congolese women and girls, the RAISE Hope for Congo campaign works to:

* Raise awareness about the crisis, the resulting widespread sexual violence against women and girls, and the solutions that are necessary to end the conflict.

* Increase news coverage of the conflict in eastern Congo.

* Build a movement of activists who can advocate effectively for change.

Influence and change policy on the Congo through promotion of the 4Ps – Peace, Protection, Punishment, and Prevention – the four ingredients necessary to END the mass violence against women in Congo.

Enough is enough.

Congo is not hopeless. There are solutions. Together, we can stop the violence.

Where there is hope there can be peace.

WHY CONGO?
Since 1996, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has played host to the world’s deadliest conflict since World War II. More than 5.4 million people have died from the ravaging effects of war and its aftermath. Today, eastern Congo is caught in an epidemic of appalling sexual violence, as militias use rape as a military tactic to destroy communities and exert control over natural resources. The conflict has been marked by cycles of escalation, and the international response has been wholly inadequate.

Following a landmark peace agreement and a tumultuous political transition backed by the world’s largest U.N. peacekeeping operation, the Congo held largely successful elections in 2006. However, elections were not a panacea to eastern Congo’s ills: 45,000 people die each month, mostly from hunger and disease resulting from the ongoing conflict, and over 1 million people have been displaced.

WHY WOMEN?

Congolese women and girls in particular bear the vicious brunt of this crisis. Indeed, eastern Congo right now is the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman or a girl. Used as a weapon of war, sexual violence and rape exist on a scale seen nowhere else in the world. Often successful in its intent to destroy and exterminate, rape is causing the destruction of women, their families, and their communities. Congo’s women are the backbone of Congolese society and are the country’s best, brightest hope. Yet efforts to protect women and girls in the Congo are failing spectacularly.

WHY NOW?
For over a century, the Congo has been plagued by regional conflict and a deadly scramble for its vast natural resources. In fact, the greed for Congo’s wealth has been a principal driver of atrocities and conflict throughout Congo’s tortured history. In eastern Congo today, resources are financing multiple armed groups, many of whom use rape as a deliberate tactic to drive the local population away from mines and other areas that they wish to control.

Despite recent efforts to cement a fragile ceasefire agreement, the Congo remains caught in a vicious cycle of violence and exploitation. Strong U.S. engagement can help end the conflict and the violence against women. Each day that goes by without action, thousands more Congolese are displaced or killed and countless women and girls are raped. Enough is enough. We must tell our leaders that we cannot allow such crimes against humanity to continue, not on our watch.

THE CAMPAIGN

The RAISE Hope for Congo campaign aims to build a permanent and diverse constituency of activists who will advocate for the protection and empowerment of Congolese women and girls. The Enough Project will collaborate with national, grassroots, and Congolese organizations, across various constituencies and the political spectrum, to build this grassroots movement. Enough will also continue to provide policy analysis and recommendations, focusing on the 4Ps – Peace, Protection, Punishment, and Prevention.

Raise Hope

More Information about Rape in the Congo:
The Greatest Silence

See this movie. It is worth every penny.

Hollywood’s Multifaceted Cause du Jour
Warner Brothers Pictures

Article Tools Sponsored By
By MARC SANTORA
Published: December 3, 2006

IN 1938 a memo sent to Harry Oppenheimer, whose family founded the De Beers diamond cartel, outlined a bold new advertising strategy: “Motion pictures seldom include scenes showing the selection or purchase of an engagement ring to a girl. It would be our plan to contact scenario writers and directors and arrange for such scenes.”

Ever since then, from Marilyn Monroe’s baubles to J. Lo’s rock, the diamond industry has used the reflected luster of celebrity to sell its wares, a shrewd marketing campaign that has helped to create a luxury business worth more than $60 billion a year.

Diamonds are love.
Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.
Diamonds are forever.

Diamonds, obviously, are much more than that. They are big business. They are hardly rare. And they have been used to finance some of the most brutal warfare of the last two decades.

It is those diamonds in particular — known as conflict diamonds — that have become a fashionable concern among entertainment figures, with stars ranging from Leonardo DiCaprio to Kanye West to Raekwon from the hip-hop collective Wu-Tang Clan speaking out about the need for consumer vigilance.

Just as the power of the entertainment industry was harnessed to create a desire, it has now been turned around to spotlight the high cost of that desire.

Next week the Warner Brothers film “Blood Diamond” will open in theaters across the country. Starring Mr. DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly and Djimon Hounsou, the tale is set against the backdrop of the chaos and carnage of the civil war that raged in the West African nation of Sierra Leone from 1991 until 2002. It was a war fought for control over the country’s sizable diamond industry and paid for by the illegal export of its products.

Sierra Leone is also the backdrop for “Bling: A Planet Rock,” a VH1 documentary scheduled for broadcast in February in which hip-hop stars are seen visiting Sierra Leone and speaking out about the issue. Another documentary, “Blood Diamonds,” to be shown on the History Channel on Dec. 23, looks back at the history of conflict diamonds, again highlighting West Africa.

Finally, Sierra Leone’s Refugee All-Stars, a band made up of musicians who fled the fighting, has just released its first album and is making its first tour of the United States, including an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show.

The diamond industry, well aware of the power of Hollywood image making, has taken notice. Through organizations like the World Diamond Council and the Diamond Information Center, the world’s largest diamond merchants have begun a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign to offset any bad publicity.

The industry has enlisted some powerful allies, receiving help from no less a moral authority than Nelson Mandela, whose native South Africa is one of the world’s largest diamond producers. He sent a letter to Alan F. Horn, the president of Warner Brothers, and the director Edward Zwick, saying it would be “deeply regrettable” if “Blood Diamond” led to the “destabilization of African diamond producing countries.”

Sally Morrison, a spokeswoman for the Diamond Information Center, said that when it came to that movie, the industry was worried “that this story would not be placed in a historical context.”

The campaign began in September as an effort to “educate both consumers and the trade about important diamond-related issues,” according to the World Diamond Council. In addition to placing full-page advertisements in 10 major newspapers, the diamond industry created a Web site, diamondfacts.org. Among other things, the industry stresses that under a 2003 agreement called the Kimberly Process, the major diamond merchants pledged to ensure that all diamonds entering the marketplace are monitored and verified.

In addition, Ms. Morrison said, diamond merchants have done their own outreach, contacting a range of people in Hollywood, from publicists to stylists, to help them understand the issues involved and the work that has been done to eliminate conflict diamonds from the marketplace. And she noted that they have worked with celebrities to show how diamond mining can help local economies in Africa. The impresario Russell Simmons, who started his own line of diamond-encrusted jewelry two years ago, is currently on an industry-organized trip to South Africa and Botswana to see how mining can have a positive impact. A similar trip was organized for the actress Ashley Judd last February.

The entertainment world’s focus on conflict diamonds, and on Sierra Leone in particular, is in part deliberate and in part coincidental. But by far the project that is attracting the most attention is the coming Leonardo DiCaprio movie.

Alex Yearsley, whose work with the nonprofit human rights organization Global Witness first helped spotlight the issue more than a decade ago, said that throughout much of the 1990s, when the worst abuses and atrocities were occurring, it was hard to get anyone to notice. “The diamond industry plays an enormous role in the geopolitics of the region,” Mr. Yearsley said.

Even the war in Sierra Leone, notorious for its brutality and the systematic severing of people’s limbs by rebel soldiers, did not gain worldwide attention until the capital, Freetown, fell in 1999. As the war reached its climax, a script circulated in Hollywood that Mr. Zwick, the director of “Blood Diamond,” said involved the hunt for a diamond but was “in the vein of an Indiana Jones movie.”

As Mr. Zwick and his colleagues began to research the issue more deeply, he said, they were horrified by what they were learning. “It is like a pebble thrown into the pond,” he said. “The ripples start to spread as they go out further.” He said he decided instead to “tell many of the truths” of the war through a fictional movie, and brought in Mr. Yearsley and other experts on the diamond trade and the war as consultants. But Mr. Zwick said it was only when Mr. DiCaprio agreed to star that they got the green light for a big-budget movie.

Several other projects got under way following the end of the war in Sierra Leone, including the VH1 special. Its trailer shows graphic images of conflict — children with limbs lopped off, a dead man on the ground with his heart ripped out — juxtaposed with Western singers and rappers ostentatiously displaying their diamonds. (Last year Kanye West released the single “Diamonds Are Forever” but remade it as “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” after learning of the damage caused by the diamond trade.)

But the documentary, which was made in partnership with the United Nations Development Project, does not dwell on the past. Instead, according to its director, Raquel Cepeda, the goal is to help countries like Sierra Leone realize more profits from their natural resources.

“I am successful if I can get a rapper to talk about conflict-free diamonds,” Ms. Cepeda said in an interview. “We want to make social consciousness a cool thing to do when they are buying their diamonds.”

To that end, she organized a tour of Sierra Leone with the reggaetón star Tego Calderón; Raekwon of Wu-Tang Clan; and the rapper Paul Wall, a designer of the diamond tooth caps fashionable among some rap stars. (The rapper Nas has also become involved with the issue, helping score the soundtrack for “Blood Diamond.”)

Where the VH1 movie focuses on the future, the History Channel documentary “Blood Diamonds” examines the historical role diamonds have played in fueling wars in West Africa and Angola. Like all those involved in the various projects, Bill Brummel, the executive producer of the film, said his goal was not to get people to boycott diamonds but to make them aware of the “high human cost” of conflict diamonds.

That cost has been especially high in Sierra Leone, where many displaced people are even now fearful of returning to their homes, which the Refugee All-Stars are trying to encourage them to do. The band’s infectiously hopeful music and powerfully personal lyrics caught the attention of Joe Perry of Aerosmith after he saw a 2002 documentary about the band. His interest helped bring the musicians to the United States, where they have opened for Aerosmith.

“I believe that buying the diamonds illegally will cause trouble, and that is why Sierra Leone has been destroyed,” Reuben Koroma, the All-Stars’ lead singer and organizing force, said in an interview. “But if these diamonds are bought legally, and the profits were used for the benefit for the nation, I think Sierra Leone would be very well off.” Part of the problem, in Sierra Leone in particular, is that very little of the profit finds its way back to the people. The government officially gets a 3 percent commission on the rough stones, but since a diamond that sells for $5,000 in America typically comes from a rough stone worth about $500, that commission amounts to about $15.

With all the focus on Sierra Leone and the worst aspects of the diamond trade, industry representatives recently approached the president of Sierra Leone, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, and asked him to speak out about the benefits of the diamond trade. He complained about how little his country still benefits from the stones and refused to cooperate, according to the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service.

Rosalind Kainyah, the director of public affairs in America for De Beers Group, the world’s leading diamond merchant, said her industry was focused on the future and empowering Africans, though “in hindsight,” she acknowledged, “there could have been an earlier drive for a solution” to the problem of conflict diamonds.

The intense lobbying effort illustrates what an awkward moment it is for an industry that has so carefully cultivated its Hollywood image. As Edward Jay Epstein noted in 1982 in his book “The Rise and Fall of Diamonds,” De Beers’s advertising agency, N. W. Ayer, bragged in a 1940 report to its client that after “a long series of conferences with Paramount officials, capped by your own efforts,” it had “succeeded in changing the title of a film from ‘Diamonds Are Dangerous’ to ‘Adventures in Diamonds.’ ”

The report also noted that the agency had gotten a scene inserted into the movie “Skylark” depicting Claudette Colbert selecting a diamond bracelet, and that in another film, ‘That Uncertain Feeling,” Merle Oberon wore $40,000 worth of diamond jewelry.

In 1948 an Ayer copywriter came up with the slogan “A diamond is forever.” And by the time Marilyn Monroe performed “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” five years later, the popular image of the diamond as the ultimate luxury item was set.

Now, all these years later, the entertainment world is turning the tables, trying to highlight the hidden costs behind that glittery image while getting audiences to recognize that, as Mr. Zwick put it, “Every time you put down your credit card, you are endorsing the way a corporation deals with the way it gets a resource from somewhere else.”

When:Saturday, November 18, 2006, Rain or Shine

Where: Between 4th and 7th Streets, N.W., on the National Mall, Washington, D.C.

Route:Go to Website at the bottom of this page

Time:7 a.m. Preregistration Check-in and Event Day Registration begin

8:30 a.m. Pre-Walkathon activities begin

9 a.m. Walkathon begins

More than 12,000 people in the Washington metropolitan area are homeless. That total includes people who are living on the streets, staying in shelters, or living in transitional housing. More than 40 percent are in families; about a third are children. “Street homelessness” is the image commonly presented to portray homelessness, only a minority of the 12,000 homeless people in our region regularly live on the streets. Nearly one-third of the region’s homeless adults are employed; in some areas, the share of employed homeless people is even higher. In Fairfax/Falls Church, for example, nearly half of all homeless adults in families are employed.

Why Are People Homeless?

The primary cause of homelessness is the shortage of affordable homes in the Washington metropolitan area. According to “Out of Reach 2005″ published by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a worker earning minimum wage in Washington, D.C., would have to work 143 hours per week to afford an average (fair market rent) two-bedroom apartment. So, with regional fair market rents averaging more than $1,000 for a one-bedroom apartment, many working families are struggling to find homes within financial reach or to hold onto the ones they have.

Challenging life situations also cause people to become homeless. People get evicted from their homes because they cannot afford steep rent hikes. People lose their jobs and wind up on the streets. Single mothers show up at shelters with their children because they cannot afford to work and pay for child care. Other people end up homeless because they are too sick to work or were forced to flee an abusive home. Some people who ran away or were pushed out of their homes as teenagers cannot afford to live on their own. While everyone’s story is different, all homeless people have one thing in common: They have no permanent place to call home.

Is There a Solution?

Yes, preventing and ending homelessness is possible. One of the keys to ending homelessness is increasing the supply of permanent affordable homes for people with low to extremely low incomes. For many homeless people, simply finding safe, decent housing they can afford will allow them to get back on their feet and provide them the opportunity to resolve other problems, if any, that might have contributed to their homelessness. But for others, affordable housing may need to be accompanied by access to a variety of social services (e.g., health care, substance abuse treatment, mental health services, and job training). The optimal solution for this subset of the homeless population is permanent supportive housing, or housing where people can live as long as they choose, and have access to the services they need for as long as they need them.

Without permanent supportive housing, this population is often forced to use expensive emergency or crisis services to get the help they need. Over time, the costs of a single homeless person or homeless family constantly cycling through emergency systems are astronomical with no positive outcome. At a much lower cost, the same person can be housed in permanent supportive housing and have their homelessness ended.

Today, more than 4,000 formerly homeless Washington metropolitan area residents are no longer homeless because they have been able to access permanent affordable housing either with or without services. But, even with this success, much more work needs to be done, as the fact that 12,000 people remain homeless in the Washington metropolitan area attests.

Toward that end, many of the metro area’s communities are actively involved in efforts to expand housing availability and eliminate homelessness. Alexandria, Montgomery County, Fairfax County, and the District of Columbia are all developing and implementing 10-year plans to prevent and end homelessness.

How Can I Help?

One way you can begin making a difference today is by participating in the Fannie Mae Foundation Help the Homeless Program, a communitywide fund-raising campaign to raise awareness of and funds for Washington metropolitan area organizations that are working to prevent and end homelessness, with an emphasis on programs that help homeless people return to independent living. The program spans several months, involves many events and fund-raising activities, and culminates in the Help the Homeless Walkathon on the National Mall, which includes tens of thousands of participants. Once a modest walk involving 150 people, the Help the Homeless Program has grown into the nation’s largest fund-raising event benefiting the homeless. Since 1988, the Fannie Mae Foundation Help the Homeless Program has raised more than $54 million for 220-plus homeless service providers in the Washington metropolitan area. Each year, tens of thousands of people join Fannie Mae Foundation Help the Homeless events to support organizations dedicated to serving homeless people.

A Recap of 2005

The 2005 Fannie Mae Foundation Help the Homeless Program achieved record-breaking results, with tens of thousands of Washington metropolitan area residents joining Honorary Chair Marlon Byrd of the Washington Nationals for the Walkathon on the National Mall. More than 80,000 Washington metropolitan area residents of all ages participated in 600-plus mini-walks around the region. More than 120 of these mini-walks were held in partnership with District of Columbia Public Schools. And, more than 312 corporate partners contributed a total of $2.7 million to the program. Altogether, the 2005 Help the Homeless Program raised more than $7.8 million to support 178 Washington metropolitan area homeless service providers working to prevent and end homelessness.

Help The Homeless DC

12-3pm

Start/finish in John Marshall Park in Washington

Every night, thousands of children walk from their homes in displacement camps to town centers to avoid abduction by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army. For one day, we are walking with them. Join tens of thousands of people in 80 cities around the world in gaining attention to the crisis in northern Uganda and support for ongoing peace negotiations.

The Washington, DC walk begins at 12pm at John Marshall Park, at 4th and Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Walkers will follow a five mile route that encircles the White House, the State Department, and the Capitol. The DC GuluWalk will feature words from numerous prominent speakers, and participants will make calls during the walk to policymakers to urge U.S. government support for ongoing negotiations that could end the twenty year war. U.S. support for the talks is urgently needed to ensure that they succeed!

Walkers are also encouraged to fundraise for child-focused programs in northern Uganda; donations can be made at the GuluWalk website or in person at the walk itself.

See www.guluwalk.com/washington/ for more details.

Uganda Can- More Info