Nearly three million Sudanese civil­ians have been displaced as they flee for their lives from the Janjaweed, the Sudanese government’s hired militia. More than 80 percent of the refugees are women and children. One of the most difficult tasks women face is gathering firewood for their fam­ily as they are often head of the family at the camps.

To help, the two sections of the Modern Africa class are organizing and planning community service projects to benefit Sudanese women with solar cookers.

“I said that if the class came up with a project that had educational validity that I would consider it,” said J.R. Fleming, Upper School history teacher. “[Senior] Margot Hershman came up with the idea, and it was hard to say no.”

The two classes are organizing bake sales, selling t-shirts, collecting donations, and encouraging students to sign a petition. All of the proceeds will provide the women with the materials necessary to build and use solar cookers. The students held the bake sale on Tuesday, Nov. 3.

While encouraging the student body to buddy up and help pay for a solar cooker, the class has arranged two spe­cific fundraisers. First, the Middle School and Upper School will both hold bake sales with all proceeds going towards the project. Second, t-shirts designed by the Modern Africa classes that say “Saving Sudan 1 Life at a Time” will be on sale for eight dollars.

“This project is all about awareness, research, organi­zation, and teamwork,” Mr. Fleming said. “Students are in charge of a lot and must work together to get it all done.”

The students in the Modern Africa class sought help from Sally Rosenberg, Director of Service Learning and Community Service, in order to organize the drives.

“[Organizing bake sales, t-shirt sales, and advertise­ments] is a skill that students need to learn no matter what path they choose,” Mrs. Rosenberg said. “It’s a life skill,” “Service learning is learning about how the problem came about in the first place and using classroom knowledge and research to eventually fig­ure out how to help the problem.”

For 30 dollars, women receive skill training on how to construct and use the solar cook­ers. They get two solar cook­ers per fam­ily, They one for water, sauce, or vege­tables, and a second for sor­ghum, their main food source.

Each solar cook­er is a small lightweight oven, handmade with cardboard and alu­minum foil. Once assembled, it converts sunlight into heat to cook the food. The solar cook­ers function as an alternative method to gathering firewood.

Jewish World Watch sponsors the Solar Cooker Project. For women who have fled the genocide in Darfur, problems arise from the need to collect scarce firewood for cooking and survival purposes. Women are forced to travel far which increases the possibility of at­tack, beating, branding, and rape because they leave the pro­tection of their villages and refugee camps.

“Hopefully by raising money and providing the solar cookers to women in Darfur, we can help prevent violence against women in that area,” said senior Avery Rape.

According to the Jewish World Watch’s website, the manufacturing of the solar cookers happens at the refugee camps. The training of women to manufacture the cookers provides them with the skills necessary to generate income for their family as well as create and maintain the solar cook­ers for the community. Women also sew sacs in which they carry the cookers and weave baskets to keep the food warm. As a result, the women have more free time to finish other tasks because watching the oven is unnecessary. Most of all, the use of solar cookers saves women countless trips to find wood and saves one ton of wood yearly.

“[The project] is making the students be proactive in a subject area,” Mrs. Rosenberg said. “In a regular classroom environment, student are provided with background his­tory, current events, then told to write their reaction. Here students see how hard it is to raise awareness.”

Currently, the Modern Africa classes have divided up the work among students to create advertising posters, make announcements to various grade levels, create a website, make a video, and plan the actual fundraising projects.

“Mrs. Rosenberg has guided us into making the project more educational rather than just having a bake sale that people know nothing about,” said Avery. “Our main goal is to inspire people to donate money because they want to, not because they want the food or a t-shirt.”

The campaigns appear to be working; of the 157 Upper School students polled, 76 percent plan to contribute to the Solar Cooker Project.

According to the Solar Project, a class website promot­ing the cause, approximately 1.8 million refugees each year die of causes that could be remedied with the addition of a solar cooker.

“Women in Sudan face the danger of being kidnapped and raped every time they go out to collect firewood to pro­vide for their families,” the website said. “Our goal is to help provide these solar cookers for the refugees to ensure their safety while preparing a meal.”

As an addendum to the project, the class took on a pe­tition created by Invisible Children, an organization dedi­cated to educating people about child soliders and other is­sues in Africa. The petition aims to end genocide in Sudan; Invisible Children strives to send it to President Obama by Christmas. The class was inspired to help after watching a documentary on the conditions on the continent.

To collect signatures, the Modern Africa students sat at check-in tables the morning of the bake sale, encouraging Upper School students to add their names to the list.

As of Oct. 30, 79,280 people have signed the petition worldwide.

Avery said she thinks class participation in the project has led to increased awareness about what it takes to make a difference.

“I think we have become more aware of how much work it takes to make people informed about a problem and also get people to care,” Avery said. “Mr. Fleming has taught us a lot about the problems in Africa and specifically in the Sudan. What he has shown us and taught us has inspired us to take action.”

While the class is only one trimester, the students will have contributed to a cause larger than simply earning a grade in a class.

“Students should gain a sense of pride knowing that by donating only $10 they are able to save a person’s life,” said Margot. “They should also gain a great sense of knowledge about an ongoing problem that needs attention turned to­wards immediately.”