students17 Aug 06 – The Annual Aegis Student Summer Conference was held in London on 17th August. Opening the conference, Aegis Trust Chief Executive, Dr James Smith, said, ‘We have to create public interest

[in preventing genocide] and that is where you can play a really important role.

He told the conference, ‘At the end of Samantha Purdy’s book ‘A problem from hell’, there is the quote: ‘The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man’. All I am going to ask you as you are forming and running Aegis Societies is be unreasonable because that’s the only way the world is going to change.’

Recalling the impact the NUS had on the anti-apartheid movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Aegis Policy Director and former Minister of Education and one-time President of the NUS, Stephen Twigg, underlined the potential power that student movements can weild.
The students heard the testimony of Rwandan survivor, Beatha Uwazaninka who spoke of how her life was saved by the courage of a young girl who let her take refuge in her house when she was being chased by a member of the militia. She spoke of the helpless situation that victims of genocide face and emphasised the important role of Aegis Societies in calling attention to the plight of people facing genocide.

The conference came in the wake of an NUS motion in support of The Aegis Student Movement. Addressing the conference, NUS President, Gemma Tumelty, expressed her personal endorsement and encouragement for the UK’s only student campaign against genocide saying;
“We are proud to be proactively working with The Aegis Trust, proud to be adding our strength to the cause for an end to the genocide of the people of Darfur, proud to be educating our members on the situation in the Sudan despite deafening silence from the media,” Gemma Tumelty’s full speech can be read here.

The conference ended with a lecture from International Relations Scholar, Dr Jennifer Welsh, on the Responsibility to Protect 1 year after it’s adoption at the 2005 World Summit.

New Co-ordination Team

Due to rapid growth of the Aegis Student Movement, a National Executive Committee was appointed to ensure its sustainability and growth. The National Executive Committee replaces the National Coordinator with the following four posts:

Chair Person – Sam Boarer (Derby University Aegis Society President)
Campaigns and Media Post – Richard Newell (Kingston University Aegis Society President)
Publicity Post – Grace Walker (Nottingham Trent University)
Webmaster – Andrew Hale (Derby University)