Osmosis and BSWSA at Arabic Filmfest Sept 23rd...

Saturday September 23rd Osmosis and VCU's BSWSA will be tabling at the Arabic Filmfest. We'll be handing out general info. on Darfur and also accepting donations for sponsoring Darfur Diaries! Professor Angelina Overvold will be speaking directly after the screening of "All About Darfour" (starts at 1:10pm) and I will be giving a quick mention about Darfur Diaries prior to her moderating a Q & A session.
We will have Save Darfur bracelets for $1 to also aid in sponsoring the Darfur Diaries event, and also help raise awareness for Save Darfur!
Come out and visit us, as we'll be setup from 11am to 4:30pm at the West Grace Street Theater at VCU campus!

OSMOSIS welcomes the AMA and BSWSA in helping with Darfur screening...

Thank you Velisia from the American Marketing Association, and Katie from the BSWSA-both affiliated with VCU-for joining with Osmosis to help support the Darfur Diaries screening on November 12th at 4:00pm.
Katie will be tabling at the Arabic Filmfest at the West Grace Street Theater Sept. 22/23rd, taking donations for us in order to make the screening free to the public!
There are also SaveDarfur bracelets available throughout Richmond for 1$ which will help benefit SaveDarfur.org and Osmosis!

Darfur Diaries TIME CHANGE!!!!Same date!!!

IMPORTANT TIME CHANGE for Darfur Diaries screening on November 12th. Originally planned for 2:00pm it has now been changed to 4:00pm due to a memorial service in rememberance of "Kristallnacht". Apologies for any inconvenience and confusion this may have caused anyone as we were not aware of the memorial service until very recently.
Kristallnacht(pronounced "crystal-knocked") was an important event which has now been recognized by many as the beginning of the Holocaust. For more info. on it please click here.

Save Darfur needs help tabling Sept. 23rd

Save Darfur, which is officially now just consisting on our lovely friend Cynthia as its main consistent support, needs help manning their table that is going to be present as a part of the River City Rocks benefit for Darfur this Sept. 23rd at Brown's Island.
She will be selling wristbands, tshirts, circulation petitions and letters for OSMOSIS, and passing out fliers for the Darfur Diaries event! Contact OSMOSIS if you can help even if its just for an hour! email: perennialgenerator@yahoo.com!

GO GEISTWEG GO!

I love this current post on Geistweg, couldn't be anymore eye opening or to the point!

US Holocaust Museum Darfur exhibit...

The United States Holocaust Museum has a wonderful,easy to follow exhibit for Darfur on display in conjunction with their immense and impressive permanent exhibit on the holocaust. The Darfur exhibit shows a striking short video piece narrated by Jerry Fowler about his recent visit to the Chad refugee camps, and current news clips about the Darfur situation. If you can, go see it, it is a great way to brush up on getting educated about Darfur and helping to easily educate others!

House res. 723 STILL needs support!!!!!

We are continuing to circulate the petition, and continuing the letter campaign for House resolution 723 which we started in August of this year! Download and print out your own copies, or email OSMOSIS if you need help or have questions. The petition is easy, the letter campaign requires that you know who your local rep. is in order to mail to the correct person. If you don't know just ask OSMOSIS for help and we'll do the legwork if you can just sign the letter and give us your basic address. Cynthia from the Richmond chapter of Save Darfur will be available at a table at the local River City Rocks benefit for Darfur Sept. 23rd at Brown's Island. She is going to have lots of petitions and letters available! Great work everybody!

Save Darfur rallies across US...

Save Darfur, the group currently championed by George Clooney, is kicking off a massive amount of rallies this Sunday the 17th to raise awareness for Darfur, and also keep the political pressure on to help Darfurians.
Their website has TONS of great information and things you can do to help!

Darfur Peace and Development joins Nov. 12th screening-

DPADO (Darfur Peace and Development Organization) is going to be present at the Nov. 12th screening of Darfur Diaries at the VA Holocaust Museum! President and founder Suliman Giddo will attend and will also be a part of the speaking panel, his brother will be helping to man their information table where they will have really great tshirts for sale! DPADO was also nice enough to add our event to theirActivities page on their website!

local Sudanese VCU student artshow at VA Holocaust Museum-

Local southern Sudanese VCU student Awer("Ah-where") Bul will be displaying his personal paintings along with photos taken from his recent visit to Kenya and the surrounding area and a short documentary he made at the VA Holocaust Museum within the upcoming weeks of September. This show will be displayed in conjunction with the Darfur Diaries screening in November. Awer is from a Dinka tribe in south Sudan which already experienced a civil war with northern Sudan back in the 1990's. He came to Richmond, VA 6 yrs. ago with 2 siblings via the Episcopal Diocese and has been attending VCU for video and painting. His story relates to the Darfurian peoples as he is displaced just as they are, and we are proud to have him as a guest speaker on the panel Nov. 12th.

President of Darfur Peace and Development Org. to attend...

I am coordinating for the president : Suliman Giddo, to attend the Nov. 12th screening of Darfur Diaries! How exciting, as the Darfur Peace and Development Organization(DPADO) is the main group who the speaking fee (asked for by the film maker) will benefit. DPADO is an amazing group actually founded in Richmond, VA about 5 years ago by Mr. Giddo, he is a relocated Darfurian refugee who is currently residing in Indiana to finish his schooling. DPADO will have an informational table with tshirts that directly benefit DPADO for sale, and Mr. Giddo will follow Jen Marlowe from Darfur Diaries along with a few other speakers after the screening.

New Journal for the studies and prevention of genocide launched...

Today the VCU School of Government and Public Affairs helped launch a new journal for the study and prevention of genocide, spear headed by Dr. Hirsch who has written several other pertinent pieces of the subject.
The journal is the first peer reviewed scholarly journal of its kind and its premier publication focuses on Darfur! Following journals will cover topics like the Armenian genocide, and raising questions about the concept of genocide and how to simplify processing people guilty of genocide. To find out more:
Genocide Studies and Prevention
(804)828-9192
email: gspjrnl@yahoo.com

Help needed handing out fliers!!!

So Richmond is gearing up for a busy social calendar this fall and Osmosis would like to be there to handout fliers for the upcoming Darfur Diaries event Nov. 12th at the VA Holocaust Museum. Since Osmosis is powered by your help, anyone interested in jumping in should contact me at: perennialgenerator@yahoo.com!

Here are the upcoming events:
Sept. 22/23rd
VCU Arabic Film Fest
Sept. 22nd from 6:00pm to 9:30pm
Sept. 23rd from 11:00am to 7:50pm
***1:10 screening called "All About Darfur"
all screenings are free and 1st come 1st serve!

Sept. 23rd
River City Rocks which is a media group that supports various musician/comedian tours, and this particular tour is focusing on sending remaining proceeds to Save Darfur Coalition.
11am-10pm
this event is NOT free but having a presence around the event to handout fliers would be great!

October 13,14,15
National Folk Festival
the 68th National Folk Festival will be hopping in downtown Richmond these 3 days, an amazing 70,000 people attended last year so being able to handout fliers here would be really wonderful!

IF ANYONE has another event they'd like to flyer at, or just plain need fliers to personally have to handout at their own convenience let me know, I will gladly mail them and try to fill your request as much as possible. Since I am currently operating out of my own pocket I am doing what I can! :-)

Eric Reeves' Sudan blog making waves...

KUDOS to Eric Reeves and his timely, poignant website Sudan Reeves keeping its many fingers on the pulse of Sudan, and keeping the pressure and focus on Darfur. His heroic efforts of keeping everything up to date (even while battling leukemia) is extremely admirable!
Check out the latest article on him here.

Tragedy strikes Darfur, Darfurians have no one to protect them now...

In the Sudan Tribune Saturday, September 2nd 2006, the Sudanese govt. has called for the withdrawal of the ONLY PEACE KEEPING FORCE currently in Darfur called the African Union (AU). This leaves NO PROTECTION for the Darfurians who have been victims of ongoing genocide, rape and displacement since at least 2003. If there was ever a dire need for our letter and petition drive it is NOW!!! Read more on the crisis of the AU withdrawal here.

petitions and letter counts to date....

You guys are FANTASTIC!! We have collected over 250 signatures and have over 100 people that joined the letter writing campaign as well! What a great response considering we only had 4 weeks to get the ball rolling, woo hoo for motivation! Keep on keeping on people, if there are still a few petitions floating around out there don't worry as we are still waiting on an appointment to speak with one of the local reps to present the petitions. If there are some stragglers still writing letters have no fear, send them in! Every little bit counts!