Garnet Mens Soccer Raises Money for Genocide Intervention Network
SWARTHMORE, Pa. -- The Swarthmore College men's soccer team hosted a youth soccer clinic on Sunday, February 4th, raising over $2,100 for the relief agency Genocide Intervention Network. The clinic, which attracted 136 youth soccer players from around the area, was organized and run by Garnet head coach Eric Wagner, assistant coaches Ciarán Dalton and Alex Elkins '05, and the Garnet varsity soccer players. The children learned basic skills, such as passing, dribbling, and shooting, and also had a chance to play matches against each other during the two-hour clinic. The children and their parents also learned about the terrible situation in Darfur, the Sudan, from four of the G.I.Net's student-spokespeople at the College.
This was the fifth consecutive year that the team has hosted this event, raising over $8,000 in total donations over that time. The Garnet soccer program has been very active in community service over the past five years, and the annual winter youth soccer benefit has steadily grown since its inception in February, 2003. This year's benefit earned money on behalf of the G.I.Net, a non-profit started two and a half years ago by several Swarthmore College students. The organization is now a fully-operational non-governmental organization based in Washington, D.C. The Chief Executive of G.I.Net, Mark Hanis, as well as several of the organization's staff members, are now Swarthmore graduates who pursue the mission full-time. There is also a strong on-campus presence of students, known as SwatSudan, working for the relief of the crisis.
For the past four years, the janjaweed militia have terrorized civilians in Darfur, the western province of Sudan. Millions of Darfurians are internally displaced, and over 400,000 have died during the genocide, which is now a major topic of U.N. deliberation. Presently, the African Union has 8,000 peacekeepers in the region, an area roughly the size of France. The G.I.Net has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to help relief agencies in the region.
A statement on the G.I.Net website says, "Today, as genocide rages in Darfur, Sudan, the world stands by, failing the vow of 'never again' that it made after the Holocaust and reaffirmed after the Rwandan genocide. The genocide in Darfur has claimed 400,000 lives and displaced over 2,500,000 people.
For more information about the G.I.Net or about the annual Benefit Clinic, please contact Eric Wagner at (610) 690-6882 or by e-mail at ewagner1@swarthmore.edu.