Students Taking Action Now: Darfur, a Georgetown student group, was selected as one of three finalists this week to compete for a $40,000 grant from the Reebok Human Rights Foundation and TV-U.

The grant would help STAND expand its efforts to raise awareness about the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The winner of the grant will be selected through an online vote that ends Wednesday.

STAND members say they would use the grant to create a nationwide adopt-a-camp initiative which would pair communities across the country with refugee camps in Darfur. Communities adopting camps would support the educational and humanitarian needs of refugees living there.

“We’re pretty excited about the prospect,” Patrick Schmitt (SFS ’06), a member of STAND, said.

STAND’s initiative would also encourage universities and their surrounding communities to adopt camps. For this reason, the organization hopes to broaden its efforts beyond student activism.

“A lot of people already want to do something,” Sasha Kinney (SFS ’06), another member, said. She said that the adopt-a-camp program would allow people across the country to expand their efforts to assist the people of Darfur.

Schmitt said that when Nate Wright (COL ’06), a founding member of STAND, traveled to Darfur as part of an MTV-U delegation in March, he learned that unsanitary conditions, disease and a lack of food and water had become more devastating to refugees than the violence itself.

Schmitt said that refugees would greatly benefit from investment in education, especially new farming techniques.

Founded at Georgetown in September 2004, STAND has raised awareness about the events taking place in Darfur through speakers, candlelight vigils, rallies and events such as the April 7 STAND Fast, during which students gave up a luxury of their choosing for a day.

The organization has attracted substantial national attention. STAND now has 80 chapters at colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.

The $40,000 grant is being offered to established college organizations with a history of Darfur activism in their respective communities. All three groups have offered proposals for how to use the grant money to advance their cause.

STAND is competing with the Genocide Intervention Fund at Swarthmore College and the Sudan Coalition at Duke University. GIF has proposed a “100 Days of Action” campaign to raise $1 million for the region and write 100,000 letters to government officials demanding action.

The Sudan Coalition wants to establish a speaker series to bring experts on genocide to Duke and, if awarded the grant, would take steps to increase activism through public schools in the Durham, N.C., area.

The three groups were chosen as finalists from a pool of 25 applicants.

The Reebok Foundation for Human Rights and MTV-U are also offering a $10,000 grant to newly-established organizations with a focus on Darfur. A STAND chapter at Michigan State University is a finalist for that award.

Schmitt said that members of STAND estimate that their organization will need to receive around 100,000 votes in order to win the grant. He said that members are encouraging students and supporters from different communities to vote.

He also said that even if STAND does not win the grant, it will benefit from greater visibility as a finalist in the national competition and will build on that momentum in the future.

“With or without the grant, we’ll be working on this all summer,” Schmitt said.