News and Events : News 07-08

NMH Student Witnesses
Darfur Devastation

MOUNT HERMON, MA—Nicholas Anderson of Conway, a senior at Northfield Mount Hermon School, spent one month in Sudan this summer as a youth ambassador for the relief organization Oxfam. He returned 16 pounds lighter, and changed by experiencing a region of the world radically different than the United States.

Recounting first hand what it’s like to live in Darfur, Nick said more Americans — particularly young Americans — must learn about the ongoing violence and humanitarian crisis in Darfur and support those who will be struggling to rebuild their lives.

“Wherever I went, you could hear the sound of gun shots. There were armed men around every corner,” Nick told Oxfam. “I couldn’t understand how violence like that could be so routine.” Commenting on conversations he had with a local man he was traveling with, Nick noted, “To me it’s a disaster, to him, it’s life.”

In one small town that absorbed more than 60,000 refugees, Nick met with people ranging in age from 14 to 20 who were living in temporary shelters. He asked them all the same question: “If there was one thing you could ask Americans to help you with, what would it be?”

The responses varied little: health care and technical training for jobs. However health care needs in Darfur were basic. “They need shovels to fill in holes and ditches in their schoolyards because during the rainy season, stagnant pools of water form and become breeding grounds for mosquitoes that carry infectious diseases like malaria. In addition, many of the young people in Darfur are looking for training in technical skills—things like carpentry and metalwork so they can get jobs and help to rebuild their communities,” Nick said.

He also noticed that young people there lacked ways to become active participants and leaders in their communities, to have a voice in what was happening around them.

“For teens in the US, there are so many ways to connect with each other and get involved in things that matter to us. In Darfur, so many of the young people I met would love to go to school, but don’t because they can’t afford it, or because the roads to the schools are unsafe and they worry about what might happen to them if they try to get to class,” said Nick. “For those who are able to go to school, that’s all they can do in a day. Once they return from class, they have to stay at home since they are not allowed to leave their homes after dark because of security concerns.”

Nick was introduced to a Oxfam by NMH alumna Constance Kane, a graduate of the class of 1966. He was eager to visit the region after co-founding with NMH senior Ana Slavin a successful national high school challenge to raise awareness and funds for Darfur by using the social networking sites Facebook and MySpace. The challenge raised more than $300,000 nationwide, and NMH won the challenge with a fundraising effort led by senior Evan Abrams. In May, Nick, Ana, and Evan traveled to Washington, DC, to meet with lawmakers and testify before congress. Dollars for Darfur funded Oxfam’s relief effort, as well as advocacy work for Save Darfur. Nick says the impetus to get involved in Darfur was an NMH study abroad trip to South Africa in 2006.

Nick appears in a video on Oxfam’s homepage, www.oxfamamerica.org.

Contact: Kate Snyder, 413-498-3357 or ksnyder@nmhschool.org.

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