Officer's Meeting Minutes 1/30/08

Spring Fundraiser

• What: at least 2 fundraising events during the spring semester; it will be our goal to raise $8000 which will buy furniture and textbooks for a school in Kampala, Uganda designed by UVA Architecture School students
• Fundraiser 1: Dessert and performance of children's choruses (and a cappella groups?) in the Newcomb Ballroom (ticketed event)
• Fundraiser 2: Business solicitations around Charlottesville by groups of 2-3 UNICEFers prepared to make a 'sales pitch' to managers about our project
  
• Why: focuses UNICEF-UVA's mission statement to one specific, concrete cause for fundraising this semester in a way which collaborates with other efforts aimed at advocating for disadvantaged children
  
• When: Newcomb Ballroom is booked from 6-10 PM on Wednesday, March 26th for Fundraiser 1; Fundraiser 2 would be ongoing but would require constant action from February to April

Other Misc Ideas/Comments: Professor Anselmo's involvement in our fundraisers; possibilities of Easter Egg Hunt or art show or auction as fundraisers; concept of providing donors (businesses and individuals) with tangible evidence of donation (i.e. poster/certificate/plaque)

Initial tasks: Milena to check out elementary/middle schools in the area, Tiffany to work out city check receipt from Guluwalk, Saana to arrange meeting with stepmom (who can provide valuable information from her experience in Charlottesville event planning), everyone to continue fleshing these fundraisers out and prepare a list of businesses, Sean to draft letter to businesses, Ashi to remain in contact with Prof. Anselmo and try to nail down the cost/method of purchasing furniture/textbooks

1/23/08 Body Meeting Recap:

- Looking back on last semester:
- Guluwalk
- Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF
- Qdoba Night
- All in all: approx. $800 raised in addition to significant attention brought to bear on children's issues in Northern Uganda

- Looking forward to this semester:
- Film screenings (team up with OAS in March?)
- Speaker series (Thomas Roberts possibly in February?)
- Big spring fundraiser to support effort by A-school to build and furnish a school in Kampala, Uganda



Feel free to post comments below.

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5M dead as Congo peace deal signed

(CNN) -- The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and armed groups in the country signed a deal Wednesday to end years of fighting in the country's east, according to Peter Kessler, with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Rebel soldiers loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda pictured in December near Goma

He had no details about the scope of the agreement. The signing ended a more than two-week-long conference between the two sides in the eastern city of Goma.

The news comes on the heels of a new report by the International Rescue Committee which said that the conflict and humanitarian crisis in Congo had taken the lives of some 5.4 million people since 1998, and that 45,000 people continue to die there every month.

IRC President George Rupp said the loss of life is equivalent to the entire population of Denmark, or the state of Colorado, dying within a decade.

Even with the country's violence, the IRC found that most of the deaths were from non-violent causes such as malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia, and malnutrition.

Nearly half the deaths were among children younger than five, even though they are only 19 percent of the population, the IRC said.

The group said the national rate of mortality is nearly 60 percent higher than the average in the sub-Saharan region.

The IRC's regional director said a peace deal -- even if it covers only the east of the country -- would have a wider impact.

"The significance is huge in the sense that the troubles in North Kivu have really been a major source of instability not only for the people in North Kivu itself, but for people in the surrounding region as well," said Alyoscia D'Onofrio, who spoke to CNN from Bukavu, in South Kivu province, which borders Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi.

D'Onofrio said a peace deal would signal that the Congolese government can take control of security even in restive areas like the east. That in turn would improve regional security, since conflict in the east has tended to draw in neighboring states, he said.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/01/23/congo/index.html

Darfur hijackings hit food distribution

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) -- A surge of truck hijackings threatens to cut off food rations for more than 2 million people in Darfur, the World Food Program said Wednesday, after 22 of its vehicles were attacked and stolen this month alone.

African Union peacekeeping soldiers guard an area near al-Salam camp in North Darfur, pictured in September 2007.

With 18 drivers still missing, the U.N. agency said its main contracting companies refuse to send more food convoys into Darfur.

"If the situation continues, we'll be forced to cut rations in parts of Darfur by mid-February," Kenro Oshidari, the head of WFP operations in Sudan, said in a statement.

The increase in violence comes barely three weeks after the United Nations took over peacekeeping in the remote region of western Sudan where 2.5 million people have been chased into refugee camps by five years of war.

Five separate attacks targeted aid workers throughout Darfur just on Tuesday, officials said. Among those were ambushes of two WFP convoys in West Darfur and the detention of five WFP staff when their cars were stolen near the North Darfur state capital of El Fasher.

"They've now been released, but it was pretty traumatic," said Emilia Casella, the WFP spokeswoman in Sudan.

A vehicle from the United Nations security services was also attacked near the West Darfur capital of El Geneina, while an aid group's car was attacked inside the capital, which is under Khartoum government control.

The agency said it didn't know who was behind the latest attacks, which it blamed on "bandits."

Top U.N. aid officials met with the Sudanese government Wednesday to extend by a year the agreement that allows international aid groups to work in Sudan, but the meeting didn't address the increased hijackings.

Over the past year, WFP has been feeding between 2 million and 3.2 million people in Darfur. It plans to distribute some $500 million worth of food in the region during 2008.

The food convoys to Darfur form the world's longest humanitarian route, with nearly 1,864 miles (3,000 km) to cross between the nearest port on the Red Sea to the desert town of El Geneina, near the border with Chad.

Nearly twice as many WFP trucks have been hijacked this month than in the previous four months combined, and the U.N. said seven humanitarian vehicles have also been stolen so far.

Some 369 tons of food were looted in the latest attacks, and the lack of trucks means deliveries will be cut by half.

"Without these deliveries, WFP faces a rapid depletion of stocks" and could face a shortage by the time seasonal rains block most roads in May, Oshidari said.

The escalation came as the U.N. launched a new peacekeeping mission to try to quell the chaos in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have died since early 2003, when ethnic African groups rebelled against the Arab-dominated central government and accused it of discrimination.

Khartoum denies accusations of widespread atrocities against civilians.

The U.N. mission had a supply convoy attacked by the Sudanese army days after taking over from the previous African Union force on January 1. The new mission is meant to grow to 26,000 peacekeepers and police officers, but less than half have reached Darfur.

"We are still lacking the aircraft, equipment and troops that are crucial for us to be present everywhere in Darfur and improve the situation," said Noureddine Mezni, the spokesman for the U.N. mission, known as UNAMID.

Sudan's government opposed for months a U.N. deployment before agreeing last June to a "hybrid operation" jointly run by the world body and the African Union. But Khartoum has since vetoed troops from some European and non-Muslim Asian countries, and U.N. officials say a series of bureaucratic hurdles could impede the deployment of an effective force.

The peacekeepers also lack some heavy military equipment such as attack helicopters.

The previous AU mission was viewed as having largely failed because it was understaffed and under-equipped.

Jean-Marie Guehenno, the chief of U.N. peacekeeping operations, is touring Darfur to assess the mission's needs. Mezni said UNAMID's leadership was appealing for U.N. members states to offer the equipment and troops "vital for the mission to succeed."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/01/23/darfur.hijackings.ap/index.html#cnnSTCText