Poetry Month Earth Day Genocide Prevention Month

Lo and behold, in addition to poetry and Earth, April is was also a time for acknowledging the issues surrounding (and damning) international acts of genocide. Yes, April is was also Genocide Prevention Month.

Of this fact (that April was a specific month for raising awareness of this issue), I had no awareness and it was only after coming across the article entitled Darfur genocide inspires actress hunger strike on Yahoo! News, that I realized that April had yet another issue to which it was "devoted." Having recently taught a unit including the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, I had pointed out to my son that Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah) was this past Tuesday, April 21, though.

Here is the brief news release in its entirety (which, in true "up-to-date" fashion appeared in my local fish-wrap two days later!):

LOS ANGELES – Mia Farrow plans to begin a hunger strike next week in solidarity with the people of Darfur.

The 64-year-old actress and humanitarian says she will begin a "fast of only water" on Monday "as a personal expression of outrage at a world that is somehow able to stand by and watch innocent men, women and children needlessly die of starvation, thirst and disease."

Farrow was moved to begin the hunger strike after the Sudanese government expelled international aid agencies from the country last month. Farrow says she is calling on world leaders to "help build a credible peace process" to end the violence in Darfur. Her protest is part of Genocide Prevention Month, a campaign to stop genocide worldwide.

Breathe in, breathe out… YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!