We Hear You, American Kids' Reflections on Darfur - Softcover

Mill Run Poets For Peace

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0979675006 ISBN 13: 9780979675003

Publisher: Open Doors Publishing, LLC, 2007

Synopsis

This project started with a historical fiction novel about the Holocaust, Number The Stars by Lois Lowry. The students went on the journey with the protagonist, Annemarie, a ten year old who was living in Denmark in 1943. At this time in history, German forces occupied Denmark. Annemarie is best friends with Ellen, who is Jewish. At the start of the novel, Annemarie believes she is not courageous and is glad that she is an ordinary person who will never be called upon to be brave. Annemarie becomes the heroine in the story and learns that being afraid does not denote a lack of bravery. Doing the right thing, even when one is afraid, constitutes courage. Next, the class had discussions about friendships, ethics, courage, and bravery. Students were asked to define and identify the inhumane behavior in the novel and in the world today. We then turned our focus toward present day Darfur. Keeping in mind our readings and discussions, the students were asked the following questions: What is our responsibility to humanity? Can the power of words change history? This prompted the students to reflect on the actions of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. We also studied the powerful words and actions of Dr. Maya Angelou and other courageous individuals. Our hope was that through the process of answering these questions, both in class discussion and in the poetry they wrote, the students would deepen their belief in their own ability to take a stand. This project gave the students a way to feel more connected and aware, not only of struggles in their own community but also of struggles in the lives of people outside of the United States. The poetry in this book is a culmination of a journey, beginning with Annemarie and ending in present day Darfur. While writing the poetry, the 5th graders momentarily became the voices of those who are not being heard. Some of the students words are that of hope, courage, and bravery. Other students lend their voices to the reality of war and life in a refugee camp. They want to let the people of Darfur know that they are not forgotten and that they hear them.

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Review:

The courageous person knows that all children are our children as we belong to the world and the world belongs to us. We Hear You American Kids Reflections on Darfur project, along with their teachers' guidance, care about Ireland and Bosnia, and South Africa, and China, and Darfur..., and Darfur. Thank you, Mrs. Rebecca Nellum Williams, Ms. Logan Williams, and Mrs. Ann Rovang-Wolff and Mill Run students for your courage. Joy, Maya Angelou --Maya Angelou

A few months ago, we received an email from a fifth-grade teacher in Virginia named Logan Williams. She had encountered our book; Darfur Diaries and had decided to educate her fifth grade students about the atrocities taking place in Darfur, connecting them to previous horrors, such as what the class had been reading about in Lois Lowry's, Number the Stars. She sent us a packet of poetry that the fifth graders at her school, Mill Run Elementary, had written in response to learning about and talking about Darfur. We read page after page of the fifth graders' writing, amazed at the compassion, empathy, outrage and solidarity for the children of Darfur that was expressed so powerfully in each poem. These young authors realized that knowing was not enough. They understood that it is their actions, including speaking out, that is most important. When we went to eastern Chad and Darfur in the fall of 2004, we had a very simple goal; to bring back the stories that no one was telling at that time; or rather, that no one was willing to tell. It was almost as if we were responding to the provocative question Elizabeth Kellen posed in her poem several years later, directed at each and every one of us: Why do we watch, just standing around doing nothing? Students have been among the people doing the most on this issue. Students at Harvard got the university to stop investing in an oil company that was doing business with the government of Sudan-a tactic called divestment that was part of how the international community helped end apartheid in South Africa. Students at Oak Park River High School near Chicago raised $6,000 for us to start funding a school for the kids we met in Muzbat village in Darfur. Sixth grade students in Minneapolis made a CD that they sold all over their community and used the proceeds to help people in Darfur. Students can-and really have-taken the lead. However, among all the incredible examples of student activism, the young activists at Mill Run are extraordinary, not only because of their youth-but because of the clarity with which they understand that the fear and trauma of a child from Darfur is as demanding of the world's attention as their own fear and trauma would be. This is a clarity that most of us in the world needs more of. May this book serve as an inspiration to anyone who encounters it, young or old, to become more fully engaged in our world. We hope the poetry within these pages will provoke all of us to examine what is worth caring about and what is worth acting on. We were speaking once about Darfur to a 9th grade class in Seattle, WA. One boy raised his hand and said, Why should I care about something that is happening across the world from me, in Sudan, when there are problems in my backyard, in my own neighborhood? Shouldn't I get involved in those issues? Our response to him was, If this film and this discussion motivates you to get involved in your own community, in something happening in the world around you, no matter how close or far, then that's fantastic. To the readers of this book: Our greatest hope is that We Hear You will inspire you to get engaged in the world-whether it's in what's happening in Darfur, in Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan or in your community. We are all responsible. We are proud to join forces with Mill Run s brave fifth grade classes in stating loudly and clearly: We will not be silent! In solidarity, Aisha Bain, Jen Marlowe, Adam Shapiro Filmmakers/Authors Darfur Diaries --Authors of Darfur Diaries

Words of Understanding and Hope Ashburn 5th-Graders Channel Compassion for Darfur Into Poetry Collection By Delphine Schrank Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, June 3, 2007; LZ01 If a war could be stopped with flights of compassion, 10-year-olds in Darfur might sleep a little easier tonight. At Mill Run Elementary School in Ashburn, 149 fifth-graders penned poems so startling and full of compassion for the suffering people of western Sudan that their words will appear in a book that will have an introduction by author Maya Angelou. Proceeds from the book's sale will help fund a school in Darfur's Muzbat village. The brainchild of teacher Logan Williams, the book project began as a lesson, which begat a question, which begat poems and drawings, which begat an idea, a publishing company and a groundswell of support from admiring readers far afield and younger Mill Run students keen to take action themselves. Can the power of words change history? With that loose question, the Mill Run fifth-graders unleashed their imaginations, sending messages of hope or projecting themselves into the minds of Darfurians and the abyss of their conflict. Out poured the answers. Wrote Colm Gallagher: The night is empty, not a sound. There is no one but my mom and me. My dad is lost, he must be found. At the break of dawn his body is on the ground. His body is empty but his soul is full. Leah Choi wrote: The angels gather around this world They watch the darkness take over Its shadows cover the sky The angels bring light that carries hope The darkness disappears As the light surrounds the world Williams credits Lois Lowry's novel Number the Stars as the starting point. Together with colleagues Rebecca Williams (no relation) and Ann Wolff, she used the tale of young Annemarie in Nazi-occupied Denmark, who rescues her Jewish friend Ellen from the death camps, to prompt reflection on courage and justice in the face of inhumanity. Surprised at the depth of her class discussion, she consulted Principal Paul L. Vickers about pinning the themes to current events. He vigorously approved. There's nothing more important than to teach a child to discover empathy, he said. Williams then asked her students, Do you think this could happen today? To their resounding no she responded with news clips about the situation in Darfur, where at least 450,000 people have died from violence or disease in a campaign of government-sponsored aggression since 2003 that the U.S. government has called genocide. Williams decided that writing poetry on the themes would test her students' newfound skills in free verse and allow them to articulate complex ethical ideas. I was shocked, very shocked," Williams said. I didn't expect the quality of the work, and I wanted to share it. She sent a draft collection of the poems to the authors and filmmakers behind Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival which documents the atrocities in the region and which the Mill Run teachers had shown in segments to their students. One of the filmmakers, Adam Shapiro, visited Mill Run and spoke to the class in early April. Williams launched her own company, Open Doors Publishing, to print the collection in time for the fifth-graders' graduation in mid-June. Tenth-graders at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County helped with the editing. And Rebecca Williams contacted Angelou, who read the poems and without hesitation offered to write the introduction. The courageous person knows that all children are our children as we belong to the world and the world belongs to us, Angelou wrote in her preface to We Hear You; American Kids' Reflections on Darfur. --Washington Post

About this edition

• Publisher: Open Doors Publishing, LLC
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0979675006
• ISBN 13: 9780979675003
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 61
• Editor: Logan Williams
• Illustrator: Mill Run Poets For Peace