Crisis Action - Journal Letter - March 2010

Pia Dawson, Crisis Action

Dear Friends,

I write to you during what I had imagined would be a slight lull in activities at Crisis Action. Our big campaign launch on the 9th January has been and gone, and we are now gearing up for the next major date on 10th April.
Of course, I should have known better. Crisis Action, as the name might suggest, does not know the meaning of the word lull!

In my first journal letter, I hinted mysteriously that we were working towards launching a campaign on Sudan. If I was vague, it was only because so many of the details hadn’t yet been decided. We had our launch date: Saturday the 9th January, the fifth anniversary of the peace agreement that ended a 22-year civil war, and exactly one year before the referendum that may see South Sudan secede to become an independent state. But we didn’t know what our campaign was called, what it would look like, who exactly was supporting it, and what exactly we’d be doing on that day. I had never worked on such a big campaign before, and was struggling to see how we would pull it all together in time.

And yet in the space of little more than a month, we had not only come up with a name – ‘Sudan 365’ – but had helped to coordinate an entire package of activities that kept Sudan in the spotlight for a whole week around the launch.

There was the viral video featuring celebrity drummers from around the world drumming together to a Sudanese beat – reflecting the international coordination needed to support the Sudanese parties to protect the peace process. Released on the 9th January, the video received over 100,000 views on Youtube in the first week alone, and we’re now using it as a mobilisation tool, asking

people to film themselves drumming along to the beat and upload their responses. These will be built up over the year in many different guises, so that the call for coordination gets louder and goes further. (And I hope some Friends will be inspired to contribute!)

In the UK on the day of the campaign launch, around 200 Sudanese people from London to Leeds braved the snow and concomitant travel chaos to join us outside Downing Street in a public demonstration. In keeping with the drumming theme, we had borrowed 70 empty water cooler bottles and emblazoned them with the Sudan365 logo before handing them out to use as drums. Apparently, they could be heard from Trafalgar Square. My fellow Peaceworker Chris helped us with placards borrowed from CND, as well as volunteering to help steward on the day, for which I remain eternally grateful. We’d also helped to arrange for the Archbishop of Sudan to address the crowd and then meet with Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, together with Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, two days later.

The public drumming event was organised in concord with groups in fifteen countries across the world, who joined together on the same day to take the message to as many audiences as possible. This was something which I played a particular role in coordinating, and though it often involved serious headaches – grappling with technological difficulties, police permissions and general communication problems – it was truly amazing when all these plans came to fruition and we got to see our partners launch Sudan365 at parallel events from Nairobi to New York and from Oslo to Cairo.

These events, combined with other initiatives timed to coincide with this important campaign moment – such as joint NGO reports and carefully placed op eds by authoritative figures – helped us to sustain global media coverage on the situation in Sudan for a good week. We saw our friends in the UK Sudanese diaspora ‘beat for peace’ on Al Jazeera, Sky News, and various Norwegian and Turkish channels I’d never even heard of. I found out later that my fellow Peaceworker, Cathrin, had heard about the campaign on the BBC World Service, while brushing her teeth in Burundi.

We’re now working to build on this movement, with more events in more countries at key points throughout 2010. As I write, we are in the middle of a two-day strategy meeting to work out advocacy priorities and campaign ideas for the upcoming months. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to contribute to the development of our online presence in particular, using social networking tools and new technologies to increase participation, reach and impact. Again, I can’t help but be vague about the details at this moment. (But do look out for Sudan365 on the 10th April, the eve of the Sudanese elections…)

As an aside, I want to briefly reflect on the uniqueness of this opportunity I’ve been given, and acknowledge how fortunate I am to have QPSW and my fellow Peaceworkers behind me throughout the year. And thanks so much to the Friends who wrote to me individually in response to my first Journal Letter. It’s a great encouragement to know that you are reading this letter and supporting my work!

While I’m on the subject of letter-writing, this may also be an appropriate place for a second shameless plug: one way that Friends and others can support the UK campaign on Sudan is to write to their MP. Together with a different group of partner organisations, we have prepared a letter urging MPs to write to the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, asking them to make Sudan a top priority during this crucial year. You just need to visit http://sudanletterwritingcampaign.org/ and enter your address, and the letter will automatically be sent to your MP.
And that’s it from me!

In peace and friendship,
Pia Dawson
March 2010