Lynchburg College students have planned a week's worth of activities to conclude the Year of the Citizen, including a talk about Sudan by a local legislator, an Earth Day celebration, and a discussion of child sex slavery.
MONDAY: STAND up for Darfur
Del. Shannon Valentine (D-Lynchburg) accepted an invitation from STAND to speak about her efforts to get the Virginia General Assembly to divest from companies doing business in Sudan at 7 p.m. Monday, April 20 in Hopwood Auditorium.
Junior Carolyn Walsh, one of the founding members of STAND, a student anti-genocide coalition, said companies invested in Sudan provide revenue for the government, which in turn is used to fund the genocide of the Darfur people.
TUESDAY: Democracy Matters
Daryn Cambridge from Democracy Matters will talk about upcoming legislative policies that affect our democracy at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 21 in the Alumni House Lounge.
Democracy Matters, a non-partisan campus-based project of Common Cause, works to get big private money out of politics. Offering paid internships to undergraduates and affiliate internships to high school students, Democracy Matters mentors the next generation of leaders dedicated to strengthening our democracy. Students organize actions and projects connecting pro-democracy reforms to issues of environment, civil rights, education, health care, and foreign policy.
WEDNESDAY: Earth Day
Lynchburg College's Earth Day celebration, "Citizen of the Earth," will feature a vegetarian cook-off, a cleanup along College Lake, a band, a rock wall, tree climbing, educational booths, Earth-friendly crafts, volleyball, and Frisbee.
The Alliance for Energy Awareness led planning for the Earth Day celebration, which will be in the Dell from 3 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 22. The event is free and open to the public.
A display about mountain-top removal for coal mining and a "no coal" activism phone booth are among the educational booths planned. Crafts include designing a reusable grocery bag and flower planting.
There will also be a Science Gang lecture, "Sex, Lies, and Pollination Biology." Dr. Nancy Cowden, associate professor of biology, and Dr. Priscilla Gannicott, associate professor of chemistry; and Jenny Thurman '10 will discuss their research on yellow lady's slippers and how the plant lures insects to help it pollinate. The lecture will be at 4:30 p.m. in the Hopwood Hall Auditorium.
THURSDAY: Discover Love (146)
Love 146, a new campus organization aimed at drawing attention to the child sex slave trade, will present a program at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 23 in Hopwood Auditorium.
SATURDAY: STAND up for Uganda
Members of STAND will be participating in a national effort to draw attention the plight of those in northern Uganda. On Saturday, April 25, members of STAND will be abducting themselves and spending the night on the national mall in Washington, D.C.
"We are doing this in order to show our support for the 30,000 children that have been abducted and forced to become child soldiers and sex slaves," Walsh said. "We will only bring what we can carry, and we will stay until we are ‘rescued.' When someone of great influence and capacity, such as a politician or media mogul, comes to our aid with the promise of working to help rescue the children of Uganda, we will then be rescued."
For more information about this national event, STAND recommends watching: http://therescue.invisiblechildren.com/en/#/watch/ and http://www.invisiblechildren.com/lastminute/index.php?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=rescueinfoemail.
For more information, contact Shannon Brennan, LC director of media relations, at 434/544-8609.