Just Do It

Sunny Days Ahead Darfur Benefit

by Joel Tannenbaum

Thu., June 28, 7-10 p.m., $10, Philadelphia Cathedral, 3723 Chestnut St., 609-226-2015, abaum123@gmail.com, www.darfuralert.org

Bad housing, bad drinking water, bad sanitation: Whether you're a Palestinian in Jordan or a Nepali in Bhutan, life in a refugee camp involves no shortage of challenges. It's no exception at the Iridimi Refugee Camp in Chad, which 17,000 refugees from the civil war in Darfur currently call home.

But worst of all at Iridimi is the routine violence and harassment that female residents are subjected to every time they leave the camp's perimeter. Unfortunately, if they want basic necessities like water and firewood, they have few other options � until now.

Local nonprofit Darfur Alert Coalition (DAC) has partnered with Sacramento-based Solar Cookers International to provide thousands of low-cost, high-efficiency solar cookers that are totally capable of meeting the cooking and water-purifying needs of Iridimi residents. The cookers, made of foil and cardboard, retail for less than $30. But we're talking pretty serious volume here, so Philadelphia residents are being asked to pitch in by attending "Sunny Days Ahead," a benefit for the Iridimi camp residents sponsored by DAC and many others. For $10, attendees get wine, finger food, music from Leana Song and Adam Monaco, poetry from Sandra Turner-Barnes, testimony and discussion from former Darfur residents and more.

When militias affiliated with Sudan's central government began murdering and raping civilians in its Darfur region in 2003, the countries of the developed world reacted swiftly and decisively � like blithering idiots. Some engaged in long and pointless debates about whether Darfur "counted" as genocide. Others embraced the conflict as a chance to Muslim-bash. But whatever the means, the commitment to idiocy remained unwavering. Here's a rare example of people doing something about Darfur that actually makes sense.