Letter of Congratulations from Save Darfur Canada

To everyone in the STAND Canada team,

I just wanted to commend you all for your Darfur advocacy activities during the recent election campaign, and the impact you have had so far.

Your national team's analysis of party positions going into the election, your chapter-led local engagement of candidates, and your participation in Save Darfur Canada's online elections campaign helped ensure that Darfur is now on the minds of newly elected decision-makers across the country.

You should be incredibly proud of your contributions - but this is only the beginning! In a few short weeks, Canada's 40th Parliamentary Session opens, and there is so much for us to do to help bring an end to the Darfur crisis. We must move forward with the same enthusiasm as we did during the elections period, and work just as hard to ensure that Canadians and decision-makers make Darfur their issue.

There are several upcoming dates of importance that you should be marking on your calendars, including the 60th anniversary of the Genocide Convention (December 9th), International Human Rights Day (December 10th), the first anniversary of the UNAMID mission (December 31st) and the International Criminal Court's announcement on whether they will indict Omar al-Bashir for 10 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity (likely in December or January). I encourage you to remind members of your community, your local media and your MPs of these important dates, and of the need for Canada to make peace and long term stability in Darfur and all of Sudan a foreign affairs priority.

On behalf of everyone at Save Darfur Canada, we look forward to working with STAND Canada in upcoming months, and to seeing more results from the larger and ever growing national Darfur advocacy movement.

Keep up the good work - and don't forget that your efforts are making a difference!

Best,

Tara Tavender
Executive Director
Save Darfur Canada
www.SDCanada.org