He donated his gold medal winnings of $25,000 to Right to Play, earmarked for Darfur refugees. He also asked for corporate sponsors to match his contribution. As of my ride home from work yesterday morning, NPR reported Nike has pledged $30,000 in product to his cause, hopefully other sponsors will also step up. See these links to the podcast and some articles that have been generated so far.
For me this serves as a nice reminder to become more knowledgeable about the situation, which has been embarrassingly underdiscussed in the United States. In this information age so much important news gets filtered out and simply ignored to be taken over by meanless garbage. Every time I think about this issue I really feel helpless, because I simply don’t know what I can do or what the US or other nations can do.
I plan to poke around for more information at the Genocide Information Network and what other links I may find. Perhaps this will lead me to better answers to take action with. Of course, I encourage you to do the same. The person who first brought the Darfur situation to my attention is Catez who periodically presents Spotlights on Darfur, posts which are jam-packed with information and links on the situation.
Good job, Joey. Oh and congratulations on the Gold.
“Any one strong individual can change the future for countless others, it happens all the time”
-Anne Rice
5 comments:
My cousin is in the Marines and was sent to Darfur a in July of 2003 as part of a 6 month peacekeeping mission. He's still there. Hopefully he'll get to come home this spring, as he hasn't been back at all yet. But you are correct, there isn't enough reporting of the problem. It's a slight back burner issue to fill in slow news days...
I'm pretty sure that Lisa wears a bracelet supporting the cause for Darfur. You're right, it's something we need to be made aware of. I'll be researching more information as well. Nike pledged $30k? Is that all? Hrmph. They can do better than that...
I get so incensed about this issue because it is inexcusable that we are allowing this to happen. Again. Did we learn nothing from Rwanda? And I was so uplifted when I heard about Joey Cheek (meant to post about it, but it's been one of those weeks).
I do wear a bracelet, and I've stopped being amazed at how often people ask me what my bracelet is for and admit that they have no idea what Darfur is or what's happening in Sudan (repeat after me: gen-o-cide; see we can say it!).
I have some extras---green rubber bracelets that read "Not on My Watch: Save Darfur." If you want one---or more than one---let me know.
Thanks for posting this, Lora!
Seems to me that this is the kind of hero to celebrate and emulate. Way to go Joey.
Isn't that fabulous! What a good individual. I'm so glad that was the winner.
Post a Comment