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Benjamin T. Swartout ’11 (Upton, Mass.), a member of Lafayette’s chapter of Amnesty International, was quoted in an article in Sunday’s Boston Herald focusing on student groups working to raise awareness of the ongoing armed conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan.
An excerpt follows:
“The people of Darfur don’t really have a voice of their own,” said Benjamin T. Swartout. 19, Amnesty International student leader at Lafayette College in Easton. “So we have to shout for them. If we shout loud enough, someday we’ll be able to say that when people weren’t listening, we made them.”
Amnesty International and the Policy Studies program have led the campus’ activist efforts concerning Darfur by holding rallies and discussions, lobbying Congress, and organizing fundraisers. Policy Studies has also hosted a high school educators workshop on Darfur, a public lecture by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof, and produced “Darfur: the World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis,” a video written by Christopher Haight ’09.
Policy Studies is taking the lead in implementing the Board of Trustees’ resolution that the College develop an educational program to heighten awareness regarding the abhorrent violations of human rights committed by the Sudanese government within the Darfur region.