The University of Notre Dame is uniting to rally for sustainable, just peace in Sudan in preparation for a referendum there that could end in violence on a scale that “would make Rwanda or Darfur look manageable,” according to Dan Griffin of Catholic Relief Services.
On Saturday (Dec. 4), the University is hosting an all-day “Playing for Peace” 3-on-3 basketball tournament and Stand with Sudan Peace Rally. The rally, which begins at noon in the Joyce Center Field House, is free and open to the public.
In October, a delegation representing the Sudan Conference of Catholic Bishops visited Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies to reach out to the Catholic community in the United States in advance of talks in Washington and New York to promote international engagement to help prevent an outbreak of violence.
Following this appeal, the Notre Dame Student Senate unanimously passed a resolution expressing the student body’s solidarity with the people of Sudan and calling upon the University to “express its support for full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement” and to “call attention to the urgency of securing a sustainable, just peace for all Sudanese.”
In response, the Notre Dame men’s basketball and lacrosse teams in partnership with Student Government organized the campus-wide rally, which will feature Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Notre Dame president emeritus; men’s basketball coach Mike Brey; men’s lacrosse coach Kevin Corrigan; Jerry Powers, director of Catholic peacebuilding studies at the Kroc Institute; Ed Bona, the first African to have played Division I basketball in the United States; and Joe Touomou, a Cameroon native and former team captain for Georgetown University.
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