Faculty, students and volunteers from the College of Saint Elizabeth are heading off today, May 28, 2008, on an early morning flight to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, as part of an annual humanitarian mission to focus on health care in that country.
When 10 College of Saint Elizabeth Women’s College students packed their suitcases for a trip to Mexico, they, unlike many of their contemporaries heading for spring break, left their bathing suits and dancing shoes behind. Instead this hand-picked group headed to the poorer neighborhoods of El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico, from March 2 to 8 as part of the College’s service initiative called the Alternative Spring Break.
So what did you do during Spring Break?
Courtney Smolen, Administrative Assistant for the Office of Communication and Marketing at the College of Saint Elizabeth (CSE), 2 Convent Road, Morristown, NJ spoke to CSE Women’s College student Marie Noël, ’07 of Pleasantville, NJ – a Theology and Sociology student with a concentration in Social Work.
Ms. Smolen spoke to Ms. Noël about her speaking at the United Nations (UN). She will be speaking to the General Assembly at the UN’s second International Day of Commemoration of the Victims of the Holocaust, on Monday, January 29, 2007. Sponsored by the UN’s Department of Public Information, the ceremony will be webcast live from 10:30 a.m. to noon at: www.un.org/webcast/.
In addition Ms. Smolen spoke to Ms. Noël about:
• Her cultural background
• Her experience on the 2006 March of Remembrance and Hope trip to Poland
• Her volunteer experience
(l - r) Rebecca Hamilton, Genocide Intervention Network representative, author and co-founder of the Harvard Darfur Action Group, stands beside Paula Fernandes, director of CSE Volunteer and Service-Learning; CSE Women’s College student Rabiye Andican, ‘07; and Joshua Bloom, Darfur Field Organizer for American Jewish World Service and coordinator of the Save Darfur Now: Voices to Stop Genocide Rally in NYC. All three individuals participated in this year’s CSE Maryclaire McGuire Social Justice Day entitled, “A Call to Action, Genocide in Darfur,” held in Saint Joseph Hall McGuire Lounge on Thursday, October 26. (Photo by Courtney Smolen)
In the Darfur region of western Sudan, genocide is occurring. Each day, men, women and children are faced with the prospects of mass killings, torture, rape and destruction of villages and camps at the hands of the Janjaweed militias, a band of fighters backed by the Sudanese government. More than 400,000 people have lost their lives to the militia group and some 2 million more have been driven from their homes, according to officials at the United Nations. These harrowing conditions have existed since 2003 - but you can help stop this crisis from continuing. You can make a difference in the world.
