On April 24th, 2009 I am hosting a Genocide Awareness Event at Fitchburg State College [Near Boston, MA]. During the same week (possibly the same day) there will be a near identical event at the University of Rhode Island.

The event will be a concert aimed at raising awareness about Genocide around the world. Tickets will be 5 dollars (minimum donation) each, and all money raised at the event will be donated to Amnesty International. Between the two events I plan on raising over $10,000.

Bands in talks to headline the event are "Jim's Big Ego" and "Big D and the Kids Table" [I plan to have a total of 4 or 5 bands playing the event]

The event will also contain 5 short documentaries (around 10 minutes each), each one focusing on a specific era or genocide. I am currently working on these short documentaries and they will be available online as well the day of the event. At the moment I have interviews set up with several authors, harvard professors, and Serj Tankian of System of a Down. The documentaries will play in between each bands set.

There will also be a 30 minute intermission where people will be able to walk outside and get information and flyers from various organizations concerning human rights and genocide. The organizations I can confirm will be at the event are as follows: Amnesty International, STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition, Africa Action, Save Darfur, Axis of Justice, American Jewish World Service, and Armenian National Committee of America.

If you guys wouldn't mind, I'd like to ask you for some favors.

1. Do any of you know of any popular bands in the New England area that would be willing to play a free show for a cause? Big D is a huge band in Boston and fairly large in New England, so if I get them to play it is going to bring in a lot of people. There are a few local bands willing to play at the event, but if I can secure a line-up of well known bands, I am going to be more likely to reach my goal of selling out the event.

2. I know that many of you are strapped for cash, especially considering the season, the economy, and child's play, but would any of you be willing to donate some money to this event come April? Every cent helps, and 100% of your money is being donated to Amnesty International to help raise awareness about human rights and genocide. None of the money will be going in my pocket or anyone else's pocket for that matter.

3. Do you think that 5 dollars is to steep a price for an event like this, or would you even recommend me charging more? The place that I am holding the event (at Fitchburg) holds 800 people (seated), so at 5 dollars a ticket, a sold out show guarantees a minimum of $4,000

4. Do you think I should contact anymore organizations? I am still looking for a Native American organization. I've contacted all the major organizations that I personally know about, as well as a few smaller ones, so if you know of any more please let me know.

Thanks for the input, and all feedback is appreciated.

I think $5 is a pretty fair price. When you say donations what are you really looking for as costs to run it?.

I'd be warely of those "Holocaust didnt happen" tosspots turning up to, maybe have a plan to "deal" with them.

You should talk to the Harry Potter Alliance. I'm sure there's tons of wizard rock bands that would play, too. Except it's a month before LeakyCon (which is in Boston as well), so I dunno.

i think 5$ is a great price, if i lived in the area i would probably go at that price. if you havn't already done so you should make some press kits and send them to local media outlets, see if you can get any coverage/advertising. as far as making a donation, how would that work, would you be setting up a paypal account or something?

Why didn't you do this on Thanksgiving?

The donations wouldn't be to run the event. Everything is literally being donated or paid for by the school. The donations would be 100% going to Amnesty.

I think "raising awareness" is stupid. Who cares if people are aware of something? It doesn't make any difference if people know something or not. Awareness efforts are a pretty big waste of time. Making an actual change is helpful; simply making people aware is fruitless. Were I suffering, I wouldn't care who was aware, I would care who was helping.

I would be hesitant to donate any resources to an event or organization that simply made people "aware" and failed to do anything actual or legitimate to help those in need.

All the money is going to Amnesty International... it's not like he's trying to raise money to make more people aware, he's trying to make people aware to raise money to help with the cause itself.

Exactly. People aren't going to act against Genocide if they don't know about it first. Plus Amnesty does a lot to help with genocide relief around the world, they aren't just about raising awareness (although they do that as well)

But what is actually being done about these genocides?

how about you get some native americans to speak at your event... fewer of them left than there are armenians

Native Americans are a central part of the first documentary, and the Armenian Genocide also has a documentary in the series

I'm sorry, but when people are aware of a situation, and they have a good heart, they will search the ways to help those who they have learned about.

I want to see these videos and donate.

And what are said people doing?

And how does one do something to stop a genocide that took place decades ago?

You don't do something to stop a genocide from happening in the past, you recognize it and learn from it to prevent genocide's from happening in the future. Also, I hope you realize there are genocide's occurring right now in the world, and they need to be stopped.

Then what is this event doing to stop said genocides.

genocide is the dumbest thing... don't kill a group of people you don't like... enslave them

slavery gets stuff done... dead people can't build temples to my awesomeness

Relax dudebro! Maybe it's not doing as much as it could, but it is doing more than nothing, and yeah, maybe people will ignore this event, maybe they'll go for fun and do nothing as a result, but maybe some will donate more money! Maybe some will donate their time, effort, brainpower, whatever, and these are all worthwhile goals.

Planting seeds.

People do what they can, ignoring the entire thing as if it doesn't exist, when one has the ability to help, is neglecting your fellow human being.

You can at least try to rally help for these poor people.

Sounds interesting, though the topic made me wonder how i can prevent a genocide from happening.

cannabis seeds... oh yeah! that would certainly help stop genocides! get all the hostile aggressors stoned. i doubt the Nazis would have done much damage if the had all been baked out of their minds.

Hasn't amnesty international been under a lot of fire lately for;

A. never really accomplishing anything

and

B. being incredibly one sided, biased, and embelishing the trutth more tham Michael Moore?

No.

Uhhh, yes?

I know you're all on that one guy's dome, so I can excuse you for not being informed about something you otherwise wouldn't care about because you're a thicky, but seriously.

I like The Cure a lot, and Robert Smith is a huge supporter of amnesty international, it doesn't mean I'll just blindly believe it isn't a totally retarded endeavour.

An organization of two and a half million people is going to take fire from time to time, especially when people are expecting them to accomplish world peace. All criticisms of Amnesty have been largely illogical, claiming that Amnesty is biased in picking and choosing their battles. This is absolutely ridiculous simply because while the Amnesty website and headquarters may focus on one or two major injustices at a time, they always put out information for people that want to change other things going on in the world. Spreading yourself too thin as an organization is never a good thing, and I'd like to point out that every time Amnesty has run a major campaign since it started in 1961, it's changed things for the better, helping people's lives and improving their quality of life. Calling Amnesty a useless organization is as ignorant as you can get. You are entitled to think that they aren't the best organization out there, but you cannot deny the massive steps forwards they have made in fighting for human-rights. This isn't about me being blind, it's about you being irrational and illogical.

oh snap son

Try the bosstones. They're Boston natives and might be down for something like this.

I'm blind because I won't funnel money into an organization that doesn't really accomplish anything.

Pardon me while I doff my tophat and pretend to do good so that I have imaginary piece of mind.

Don't forget to make "profound" quotes about politics and morality and the economy, as though you were a brilliant, educated philosopher, instead of a foreign rock-star wannabe.

How'd I know THAT was coming.

Also SAJN, I think Rob is right in that sometimes Amnesty has been caught under some fire. I seem to remember a former board member finally coming out and saying that Amnesty did some pretty terrible things. I really don't know, so you'll have to enlighten me about what was done about the story. But for the record, here were his quotes....



In response to your post though, i think 5 dollars is MORE than a fair price. Hell, taking it from more of a motivational aspect, the people who are coming to this most likely are coming because they genuinely do care about Amnesty Int'l as well as awareness of genocide. I would say you might be able to raise even more money.

Also, check out Bang Camaro. Pretty sure they are a Boston band, and they are an awesome live show.

I'm pretty sure no matter how much money you give or how badly you picket and scream, you won't stop a hellbent dictator from slaughtering mass amounts of people. Especially not from the comfy confines of your campus, muchless the US.

Want to stop genocide? Learn espionage, how to forge passports and ID's, and how to shoot a high-powered rifle from a long distance. Eliminating the source is the only way to get **** done, not screaming at him from a country over and dumping money into the hands of people (NOT speaking of sajn on this one) who will cause it to never leave US borders.



If this was a drive to give sudaneese people water or tibetian kids christmas presents, I would probably be a little less harsh, since your donation has a literal effect, rather then a proposed one.

I sent Bang Camaro a message a few days ago, they haven't gotten back to me yet.

As for those quotes concerning Amnesty, I'll have to research that, but I honestly haven't heard anything about any of those other than the quotes you just posted.




If you are referring to Serj, he graduated at the top of his class and went on to run his own software company before forming System of a Down. He also runs the Axis of Justice, a non-profit organization that fights for social justice. His grandfather is a survivor of the Armenian Genocide and he's constantly met with senators and congressmen to get bills passed that fight for genocide recognition as well as human rights. So I think he's more than qualified to talk all he wants.

SAJN, get used to people trying to tear you down every time you do something. They're jealous that you are actually taking some sort of action. Criticism over the internets is worth a helluva lot less than what you're doing.

Sounds like someone wants to taste some SAJN sausage.

Just because I'm not a sheep, following what's "popular", and have important things to do that deal with my life doesn't mean I'm "jealous".

You are among the sheep, since you're just like 98% of everyone else.

That's an interesting statistic; where do you fall in?

94.7% of statistics are made up on the spot

Ooh! I wanna come!