US stars raise money to help Darfur
June 27, 2007 (UNITED NATIONS) — George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and company have already donated more than half the $9.3 million (A6.9 million) they have raised since the premiere of “Ocean’s Thirteen” last month to help hundreds of thousands of Sudanese civilians survive in the conflict-wracked Darfur region and they are just beginning.
Clooney said they want to keep emptying and replenishing the coffers of the humanitarian organization co-founded by the all-star cast and the filmmakers of the lighthearted caper film to focus global attention on the plight of the 2.5 million people in Darfur who have fled their homes.
“There are only a few things we can do protect them where we can, and provide food, water, health care and counseling,” Clooney said in a telephone interview Tuesday from Rome. “We’re just trying to get them to live long enough to get to the next step.”
Clooney announced the latest donation from the new humanitarian organization called Not On Our Watch — $1 million (A740,000) to the U.N. World Food Program — which will be used to help the U.N. agency deliver food and other necessities by helicopter to inaccessible villages in Darfur.
“They’re having trouble in just funding the helicopters,” he explained. “We’re expanding the fleet of helicopters to supply these hard to reach places. It’s for people displaced from their homes, and this is the only way to reach them, because there is no road access.”
Karen Sendelback, president and CEO of U.S.-based Friends of the World Food Program, said in a statement that every aid organization working in Darfur relies on WFP planes and helicopters to get to inaccessible villages and “the generous gift” will greatly expand aid to the needy.
The stars and filmmakers of “Ocean’s Thirteen”, also including Don Cheadle and producer Jerry Weintraub, began their fundraising efforts for Darfur at the May 24 premiere of the movie at the Cannes Film Festival in France. They have raised $9.3 million (A6.9 million) the vast majority from a benefit dinner in Cannes and are continuing to receive donations through a special Web site.
In “Ocean’s Thirteen,” directed by Steven Soderbergh, Clooney reprises his role of Danny Ocean who reassembles his crew of master criminals to take revenge on a hated Las Vegas businessman and casino owner played by Al Pacino.
In deciding how to disburse the money, Clooney said, the group decided to focus on charities “who are the first ones in and the last ones out.”
So he said they went to the groups on the ground in Darfur and said, “what do you need right now that can save people’s lives, and give us specifics tell us how much it will cost.”
“That way we don’t feel we’re flooding anybody,” Clooney said.
Last year, George Clooney and his journalist father, Nick Clooney, visited International Refugee Committee programs in Sudan and neighboring Chad, which the actor said instilled in him the urgency of acting quickly to protect civilians and save lives.
More than 200,000 people have died in the Darfur region of western Sudan since 2003, when local ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Sudanese government, accusing it of decades of neglect. Sudan’s government is accused of unleashing in response a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed, a charge it denies.
The latest WFP donation raised to $5.5 million (A4.09 million) the amount that Not On Our Watch has given to humanitarian and relief organizations working in Darfur in less than three weeks.
Its first donation of $2.75 million (A2.04 million) went to the International Rescue Committee, which Clooney said would be used to treat the sick; provide clean water, latrines and child nutrition centers; and build a health care center at the Oure Cassoni refugee camp in Abeche, Chad, across the border from Darfur.
Not On Our Watch also donated $750,000 (A557,200) to the British-based relief agency Oxfam which Clooney said will be used to drill for water and truck it to the needy, and provide the displaced with fuel-efficient stoves which means women won’t have to leave the camps so often where they run a great risk of getting raped.
Save The Children, the British-based charity which operates worldwide, recieved $1 million (A740,000) to upgrade the obstetrics ward and set up a trauma center for rape victims at the Al Krenek Camp in western Darfur, and similar facilities in eastern Chad, Clooney said.
Not On Our Watch is going to pay a professional, out of the stars’ and producers’ own pockets, to run the organization, he said.
Clooney said everyone on the board is committed to keep raising awareness and money.
“I have every intention of doing it in other places,” he said, and the upcoming film festivals in Venice and Deauville, France “sound like good spots” for fundraising events.
“Every time we have a chance to take this internationally, we should,” he said.
“There are so many resources at the premiere of a movie,” Clooney said. “Rather than talk about who you are dating, let’s talk about saving lives.”
(AP)