Contact: Abby Kaplan

STAND (A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition)

617-517-6025

abbykaplan1125@yahoo.com

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

 

STATE RADIO ROCKS FOR DARFUR

With Special Guest, the McCoy Brothers

At Newton South High School on 2/08/07

Former Dispatch Member Chad Urmston’s Current Band takes it to Newton, MA

With Political Tunes and a Social Conscience

 

NEWTON, MA (January 12, 2007) — Stirring the nation with reggae-infused rock songs and political lyrics, Chad Urmston’s State Radio continues to progress in musical popularity and philanthropic activity. The dedicated fans who have followed Urmston’s career from his start in the popular band Dispatch, which announced its indefinite hiatus with “The Last Dispatch” concert in 2004, will remember over 100,000 fans from all over the world boiling in the Boston Hatch Shell in July to bid farewell to a musical era. Moving on with his career, Urmston has led State Radio through countrywide and international tours, all the while remaining altruistic in supporting worthy causes and staying true to his roots. The rising talents of State Radio will rock for Darfur, Sudan, the location of the century’s first genocide, when they return to their home state of Massachusetts in Newton Centre at the Newton South High School Field House on Thursday, February 8, 2007.

 

When: Thursday, February 8, 2007

Where: The Field House at Newton South High School – Newton MA

Doors open: 6:15pm

Showtime: 7pm

Tickets: $20.00

For more information: www.stateradio.com

 

The Newton South High School State Radio Darfur Benefit Concert was spearheaded by members of the school’s STAND chapter, who have dedicated the last few months to designing, organizing, and implementing every detail of the concert. STAND (A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition) is an umbrella organization of over 600 high school and college chapters dedicated to putting an end to genocide, specifically the ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan. STAND formed out of the rapidly growing student movement to protect Darfur and works to unify this anti-genocide movement under one message by providing students with informational and educational resources, empowering them through an extensive network of impassioned student activists, and advocating for a change in the world’s mentality toward genocide.[i] “Movements in the past have been sparked and carried largely by students and religious groups, and STAND is proud to represent the voice of the student movement against genocide. We will continue to fight injustice and inspire others to fight with us. Students must and will keep augmenting this movement until there is peace and justice in Sudan,” said Spencer Lawrence, STAND’s Northeast High School Regional Coordinator from Brookline, MA.

 

 

The violent conflict in Darfur, Sudan has been ongoing for more than three years. Now, at least 400,000 innocent civilians have been murdered while another 2 million have been driven from their homes and now live in ill-equipped displaced-persons camps elsewhere in Sudan and in neighboring Chad, where women and young girls are still in constant danger of rape, and food and medical care is scarce. Over 3.5 million men, women, and children now depend fully on international support in order to even survive.[ii] “Not since the Rwandan genocide of 1994 has the world seen such a calculated campaign of displacement, starvation, rape, and mass slaughter,” declared the Save Darfur Coalition, an organization devoted to spreading awareness about the atrocities in Darfur and mobilizing a unified response to end the genocide.

State Radio, socially aware and politically active, has been supporting worthy causes throughout its existence. Now teaming up with the McCoy Brothers with guitarist/ vocalist Dave McCoy, who is the faculty advisor for the Newton South High School STAND chapter, State Radio is enabling the STAND students to raise substantial funds for humanitarian aide in Darfur. All proceeds will be divided among The Save Darfur Coalition[iii], The Genocide Intervention Network[iv], and The Mercy Corps in Darfur[v].

More than just an enormous fundraiser, the State Radio Darfur Benefit Concert is about spreading the word. The Newton South High School STAND members want as many people as possible to learn about the atrocities in Darfur and get active in the fight against genocide.

“Hunger, violence and rape are just a few of the intolerable problems. Keep talking about [the genocide in Darfur]. It's the least we can do,” wrote State Radio on their website journal.

 

 

More information is available at www.STATERADIO.com.

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