Social justice group to host vigil, participate in rally during March

By Katy Nelson

Mirror Staff Writer
March 7, 2008

The Augustana Coalition for Social Justice (ACSJ) is using the month of March to call for peace and to find support from students and the Sioux Falls community.

The group hopes to spread awareness on the Iraq War and other issues that interfere with a peaceful world by planning events and encouraging students to take an interest. They are calling it “March…for Peace.”

“Since Vietnam, our country has been at war with someone,” said Jeff Venekamp, faculty advisor for ACSJ. “There is a complete generation of people that knows only war.”

In honor of the fifth anniversary of American occupation in Iraq, ACSJ will host a vigil outside the Chapel of Reconciliation on March 12. The group is asking students to sign up in the Commons March 9-12, where they will receive a candle. Participants will meet at the pole outside the chapel at 10:40 a.m., to hold hands and pray or reflect in honor of soldiers wounded or killed in Iraq.

“A lot of people don’t understand the conflict in Iraq,” sophomore leader of ACSJ Caitie Caughey said.

Caughey said that many students and members of the community also have family members and friends involved in the war.

“If it moves [participants] to write to their senators, that’s great, and if it just leads them to think, we will have accomplished something,” Caughey said.

The vigil will last about 20 minutes, after which the candles will be placed in jars of sand and left throughout the day to represent soldiers and remind students of the occasion, according to Caughey. The group hopes to stretch the line of participants across campus grounds.

“Anything we can do to bring peace to our world, we need to do,” Venekamp said.

ACSJ is also encouraging students to participate in two End the War Now rallies sponsored by South Dakota ANSWER, a statewide group that advocates for peace and the end of racism. The first rally is on March 15 from 3-5 p.m., on 43rd St. and Louise Ave. The other will be held on March 19, the actual anniversary of the occupation.

The second rally will be at 26th and Western Ave., the site of the first protest of the Iraq war staged in Sioux Falls. Protestors will unite to march and call for an end to the war.

In addition to the war protests, ACSJ is also working with the Invisible Children Campaign, a group that travels around and shows a documentary about Rwandan children who are forced to leave their homes each night in order to guard against being kidnapped by the military and forced to fight.

The group is making an effort to raise funds to help these children. According to Caughey, ACSJ hopes that they can organize a visit to Augustana but no date has been set.

“There is a better way to live and we certainly can start by protesting what doesn’t work,” Venekamp said.