A week from today I will be in Boston. “Why is Ashley going to Boston,” you may be asking yourself….I am going for music, human rights, and a non-profit of course.
Over the past two years I have become ridiculously involved in social service and human rights ( got to love Colorado and open minded people!). I read Half the Sky by Nicholas Krist
of and Sheryl Wudunn and to say it changed my life would be minimizing what it has done for me. To read about all the atrocities that are happen to women all over the world made me #1 grateful for my life #2 REALLY fucking pissed. Luckily I have been involved with Calling All Crows, a non-profit started by Chad Stokes ( the lead singer of State Radio & Dispatch) and his Partner Sybil. Calling All Crows has afforded me many opportunities and this is why I am going to Boston. Calling All Crows mission is to get their fans more involved in their communities and socially aware ( I am a great example of how this worked !!)
In 2009 Calling All Crows worked with Oxfam and The Stoves Project to help send stoves to the women in Darfur. If you have been even slightly involved in my life you have probably heard me talk about Darfur on a number of occasions or I have hit you up for a donation. Darfur is located in the North West area of Sudan. For those of you know who don’t know a ton about Sudan it is run by a horrible dictator, Omar al’Bashir ( who just won another term due to a crappy election)and the capital is Khartoum. From this city Bashir ordered the borders seal and released his ruthless, sadistic, and morbid “army” the Janjaweed or commonly called “devils on horseback”. The Janjaweed systematically killed/raped/or forced the non-arabs in Darfur to flee to displacement camps. Since food and pretty much everything is scares in the displacement camps women are often sent out to get fire wood and countless times have been brutally raped by the Janjaweed. When asked why they do not send the men many women stated, “ We are only raped they would killed.” TOTAL CRAP.
SOOOOO Oxfam designed this brilliant stove so women would have to leave the camps a ton less. For every $20.00 donated a new stove was give to a women in Darfur…making her standard of life so much better. In 2009 Calling All Crows raised $100,000.00 for Oxfam, meaning 5,000 women and families got stoves.
Because of the murders that are happening/happened in Darfur in October of 2007 George W. Bush label what was happening in Sudan a genocide. Why a genocide….. they had killed an estimated 200,000-400,000 civilians over the previous three years. The UN Security Council called for the Janjaweed to be disarmed. On July 14, 2008 the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court filed genocide charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, accusing him of masterminding attempts to wipe out African tribes in Darfur with a campaign of murder, rape and deportation using the Janjaweed tribes.
One of the MAJOR reasons I voted for Obama ( beside the fact Palin terrified me…..but that’s another blog) was because when he was a senator he was very outspoken about the situation in Darfur and even spoke at the SaveDarfur rally in DC. But since elected to office he had been pretty quite on the matter ….until recently since the US is helping Sudan with a reform which will hopefully break the north from the south…or it could end horrible.
SO this year Calling All Crows is doing “Tree, training, and Donkey carts”.This is a very grassroots project giving families in camps a way to be self sustainable. I love this project as I am a huge proponent of micro financing and giving people a chance to change their circumstance…especially women!
Yes while all this is great…it is VERY easy to be part of an amazing non-profit like Calling All Crows when they are directly linked to State Radio. The co-direct of Calling All Crows is State Radio’s light guy…his wife…sells merchandise at show and the band member constantly volunteer while on tour.
So yes I am going to Boston/North Hampton for Calling All Crows Second Annual 5k weekend which will raise money for the Tree, Training, and Donkey Carts project…but I also get to see a bunch of Crows whom I love and miss….And I get to see Chad, Sybil, Jody, Matt, and Mike Najarian….pretty frickin stoked on this.
Look for pictures on facebook and here sometime after my travels in November ( Tucson and Phoenix both in November…ohhhh Arizona how you have missed me!)
Yay, I'm excited for your trip! That is some craziness that is happening in our world. I feel so lucky that we live a safer life. Way to go Calling All Crows, how terrific!
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