Students hope to raise Sudan awareness

For many university students, traveling is about having fun. However, for one group of VCU students, the desire to spread awareness
about others’ suffering is leading them thousands of miles away to Sudan.

During the upcoming summer break, a group of seven friends will spend four to six weeks in Sudan making a documentary. The goal of the documentary is to raise awareness in the United States about the plight of the Sudanese people.

Since 2003, the western region of Sudan has seen widespread violence in what former Secretary of State Colin Powell has deemed a “genocide.” Since that time, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than 2 million have been displaced by rebel militias.

VCU sophomore Allison Proffer is one of the students going on the trip. Proffer said she hopes this documentary will bring awareness to the crisis in Sudan.

“We will be filming so that when we come back, people will be able to see through our eyes and their own what we saw and gain an understanding of the reality the Sudanese live in,” she said.

With such violence consuming Sudan, some members of the group are concerned about safety.

Proffer’s family and other students’ families are worried, she said.

A VCU junior, Jonathan Tobin, will be the person responsible for filming and editing the documen-
tary. He said that the trip is risky but thinks it will be worth the risks.

“It’s kind of sketchy, but if the Lord wants us to go, he will protect us,” Tobin said.

He said in the end what he really wants is for some good to be done in the world.

While in Sudan, the group will be staying at a government compound in the garrison town, Aweil.

William Deng, a VCU student and Sudanese native, will act as a guide for the group. Being that the students are not traveling in associa-
tion with any sort of organization, Deng is their sole connection in Sudan.

Bonnie Davis, associate professor of mass communications at VCU, recently returned from Accra, Ghana. She went there to observe whether the nation’s agricultural productivity had improved after intervention by the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. government organization.

From her experience, Davis said she doesn’t advise students to travel alone or unsupervised.

“Remember, we are in a period of time in which more journalists have been killed on foreign turf than ever before,” she said.

For Proffer, the trip is worth the risk.

The group hopes the documentary will help to raise money and support to build a secondary school in Aweil while it raises awareness about the troubles affecting Sudan.

“We decided to take this risk and sacrifice time and money because we feel that the people of Sudan deserve an education just as much as we do,” Proffer said.

“We are tired of ignorance to the rest of the world. Our world should not end with our homes and schools; it should extend much beyond that,” Proffer said. “We want to change that numbness that people have to others’ suffering.”