Teen Raises $14,000 for Darfur Relief

April 30, 2006 — -- Across the country today, there are rallies to raise attention to what many have called genocide in Darfur, Sudan, that organizers hope will attract thousands.

Among those going to a George Clooney-headlined rally on the National Mall in Washington is 13-year-old Rachel Koretsky, of Yardley, Pa., who has raised nearly $14,000 to help the Sudanese.

For her Bat Mitzvah charity project, Koretsky began raising money for Darfur two years ago, setting -- and then exceeding -- a goal of getting to $10,000.

She was initially inspired by a news story she saw about Darfur while on vacation with her family in Costa Rica during the summer of 2004. It was the first time she had seen anything about it, and it called to mind the Holocaust, which she had recently studied.

"I learned from Hebrew school that the Holocaust happened, and how we said never again, and the world said that," Koretsky said. "And now it's happening again. It's happened in Rwanda and now it's happening in Sudan, so I think the world should come together and say this should not happen anymore in the world."

The situation in Sudan began in February 2003 when Darfuri rebels, protesting discrimination against African tribes by the Arab-led government, started attacking police stations and military posts. In response, the Janjaweed -- Arab militias supported by the government -- began to systematically kill people in the African tribal communities of the western area of Sudan known as Darfur.

Koretsky began her money-raising efforts by educating her synagogue's congregation. She wrote and distributed letters about the Darfur situation, and received donations from every congregrant. Then she held a raffle, sold 'Save Darfur' bracelets and put Sudan donation cans in local stores.

With so many terrible things going on in the world, Koretsky has the difficult task of educating people about Darfur and getting them to understand why they must help.

"Basically, I just tell them what's going on, like what the situation is, what I have been doing for the last two years, how I started," she said.

Koretsky is donating the money to the American Jewish World Services, a non-profit relief organization which will use it to rebuild destroyed homes, to import and distribute food, water and medicine to the two million Sudanese made homeless by the Darfur conflict.

She says she believes that if people get involved, they can stop the genocide in Darfur, where three years of conflict has led to the deaths of 200,000 people.

"We can raise money for the cause, and if the governments of the world put troops in, I think we can end the genocide in Darfur," she said. "Right now, we're just letting history repeat itself. We should go in right now and not wait until the last minute, like we're doing now."