Words of Understanding and Hope
Ashburn 5th-Graders Channel Compassion for Darfur Into Poetry Collection
Fifth-graders at Mill Run Elementary in Ashburn are publishing a book of poems to benefit a school in Sudan and are collecting donations, as well.
(By Tracy A. Woodward -- The Washington Post)
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Sunday, June 3, 2007; Page LZ01
If a war could be stopped with flights of compassion, 10-year-olds in Darfur might sleep a little easier tonight.
At Mill Run Elementary School in Ashburn, 149 fifth-graders penned poems so startling and full of compassion for the suffering people of western Sudan that their words will appear in a book that will have an introduction by author Maya Angelou. Proceeds from the book's sale will help fund a school in Darfur's Muzbat village.
The brainchild of teacher Logan Williams, the book project began as a lesson, which begat a question, which begat poems and drawings, which begat an idea, a publishing company and a groundswell of support from admiring readers far afield and younger Mill Run students keen to take action themselves.
"Can the power of words change history?" With that loose question, the Mill Run fifth-graders unleashed their imaginations, sending messages of hope or projecting themselves into the minds of Darfurians and the abyss of their conflict.
Out poured the answers.
Wrote Colm Gallagher:
The night is empty, not a sound.
There is no one but my mom and me.
My dad is lost, he must be found.
At the break of dawn his body is on the ground.
His body is empty but his soul is full.
Leah Choi wrote:
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