Aggies for Africa, a student group on campus was started shortly after Ashley Linford saw a newspaper advertisement. She happened upon an open newspaper that one of her roommates had left lying around, according to The Deseret News.

Linford said in an interview with The Deseret News that the newspaper had a full-page ad of a woman, her child and a dead body. She said she knew little to nothing about the Darfur region and was immediately touched and inspired by the ad and wanted to make a difference.

In 2006, several USU students started the group Aggies for Africa and started raising awareness and money to do their part to stop the genocide in Darfur and raise funds and awareness about issues and concerns in Africa.

Aggies for Africa is an official club that operates through the Val R. Christensen Service Center, said Dawnica Lauritzen, the director of Aggies for Africa, senior in international studies.

“This year we have 350 members and we are growing,” Lauritzen said. “People really love the organization.”

In September 2004, Collin Powell, the secretary of state, declared the violence in the Darfur region to be genocide and blamed the Sudanese government and the pro-government Arab Janjaweed militias for the killings of hundreds of thousands of people. At the time, more than a million Sudanese had lost their homes, according to the BBC.

The killings were not random and although the Sudanese foreign affairs minister, Najib Abdul Wahab, denied the claims of genocide, the European Union, the United States and Great Britain have raised millions of dollars to aid the displaced refugees.

Aggies for Africa holds monthly meetings on campus and one of the main goals is to raise awareness about issues that Africans are facing, Lauritzen said.

Along with awareness, the group hopes to raise $50,000 this academic school in order to build a school in Mali, Lauritzen said.

Aggies for Africa has been collecting shoes in boxes placed around campus for three years now, Lauritzen said. Last year USU collected about 3,000 pairs of shoes and the club hopes to collect more this year, she said. The shoes go to benefit an orphanage and community in Africa, she said.

“We have the slogan: We go barefoot so they don’t have to,” Lauritzen said.

Aggies for Africa works closely with several organizations including one called Mali Rising, Lauritzen said.

Aggies for Africa hosted a benefit concert in the Lundstrom Student Center last night where the bands – The Shuttles, The Boy and His Machine, Same as Sunday and The Love Puppets – performed.

The club does several fundraisers and holds monthly meetings. For more information on how to join e-mail aggiesforafrica@gmail.com or go to the service center on the third floor of the Taggart Student Center.

–seth.bracken@aggiemail.usu.edu