Conway teen targets Darfur

from The Republican

By DAVID A. VALLETTE
dvallette@repub.com

CONWAY - Until Nicholas Anderson went on a school field trip in May 2006, his life was rather local.

He has certainly branched out since.

That trip, with a humanities class at Northfield-Mount Hermon School, was to South Africa.

"It opened my eyes; it inspired me to get involved," said the Conway teenager last week.

What he witnessed, he said, was a high level of poverty.

When he returned home, he decided to immediately begin trying to make a difference. He chose the Internet and Oxfam America as his vehicles, and focused on Darfur in the Sudan as a place in need.

Oxfam is working to provide drinking water delivery systems and building materials to help the estimated 2.5 million people in Darfur who have lost their homes - victims of war.

Anderson began using the Internet to raise funds for Darfur, and, as Oxfam's designated "youth ambassador," spent a month there this summer.

He met with the youth of Darfur, and asked them primarily, "what can we do for you?"

The answer overwhelmingly was to help get a cease fire, and to provide vocational training so they would have the skills to rebuild their homes, Anderson said.

"Wherever I went you could hear the sound of gun shots. There were armed men around every corner," he said.

He said he came away with the importance for American youth to link to their peers in Darfur, step up, and help them.

"So many of the young people I met would love to go to school, but don't because they can't afford it, or because the roads to the schools are unsafe, and they worry about what might happen to them if they try to get to class," Anderson said.

Once night arrives, they are bound to their homes, unable to venture out because of the conflict's increased danger in darkness, he said.

Born in Montreal, Anderson has lived just about all his life in Conway, and he has taken advantage of the presence of Franklin County's noted private schools. He attended Bement School for grades 1 through 5, then Eaglebrook through grade 9, and now is a senior at Northfield Mount Hermon.

With the help of classmate Ana Slavin, Anderson started "Dollars for Darfur," and set up a nation-wide fund-raising competition among high schools, using Facebook and MySpace social networking sites. It raised more than $300,000, with half of that sent to the Save Darfur Coalition, and one quarter each to Oxfam America and the International Rescue Committee.