Host an awareness day

Want to motivate people around you? It all begins with knowing about a issue. A ton of people may have no idea what’s going on in Darfur, or maybe just don’t know how bad it is. Others may want to help, but just don’t know how. Host an awareness day to tell people about the genocide in Darfur, and get them to do something.

Step 1

Find your ingredients. What will you need?

• A place to set up stuff. You can ask your school, place of worship, or see if you can have something in a gym or community center nearby.
• Info. Gather shocking facts, posters, pictures, flyers, anything. Make sure you also give info about the awareness day itself – where it will be, what time, what day, all that good stuff.
• An enthusiastic audience. Publicize the heck out of this thing. Send out flyers, emails, ask your principal to make an announcement over the PA system, or get permission to hang flyers in your hallway.

Step 2

Put it all together. With your facts, make flashy posters and flyers. Make it interesting and really surprising, and people will be more interested in the subject. Post flyers that give details about the day (when, where, why, and so on). Use a computer to print stuff out if you can, to make it look more impressive and professional. Check out the space where you will be setting up your stuff and say, “where can I hang things up? What would look good over here? How many things can I fit in this space?”

If you are doing this at your school, see if you can get other students or teachers involved. Get social studies, politics, and history teachers talk about Darfur in the classroom!

Step 3

What do you want your big message to be? Once people are motivated, what do you want them to do? You can encourage them to donate to organizations, inform others, or to check out organizations to learn even more.

Step 4

Host your big day! Make sure you have tables and chairs if you need them, fact sheets that people can walk away with, website they can go to (be sure to put Do Something down as one of them!). Posters and big things that catch people’s eye should be put up to attract people walking by. A few papers sitting on a table aren’t nearly as attractive.

Step 5 (optional)

Direct them to your Dollars for Darfur website! (Check out our Take Action on this fundraiser here).