April 2 concert to benefit Mexican families

MIDDLEBURY, Vt.-According to the Amnesty International Web site, more than 370 girls and women have been murdered and abducted in the cities of Juárez and Chihuahua, Mexico, since 1993. In an effort to raise awareness about violence against women around the globe and these Mexican women in particular, the Middlebury College Amnesty International chapter will hold a film screening on April 1 and a benefit concert April 2. The local chapter’s events are part of a National Week of Student Action?a campaign organized by Amnesty International U.S.A. that will take place March 29-April 5.

The screening of the film, titled “Señorita Extraviada” (Missing Young Woman), will take place Thursday, April 1, at 8 p.m. in Room 110 of Sunderland Language Center on College Street (Route 125). The film, which was made available courtesy of the Amnesty International Film Festival, is free and open to the public.

The benefit concert will take place Friday, April 2, at 8 p.m. in the basement of Forest Hall, which is also located on College Street (Route 125). The concert will feature various student musicians, including Anais Mitchell, a guitarist who will perform original folk songs, as well as a student performance of an excerpt of the play the “Vagina Monologues” by Eve Ensler, a 1975 Middlebury College graduate.

According to Middlebury College senior Julia Davidson, president of the student Amnesty International chapter at Middlebury, those who attend the concert will have the opportunity to sign letters to the Mexican government and to American companies with factories in Ciudad Juárez that urge them to take a more active role in ending the ongoing violence. Concert goers may also write cards to the families of the women who have been murdered or have disappeared. The event is open to the public and a donation of $2 is suggested. The proceeds will benefit the organization Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa (May our Daughters Return Home), a Mexican non-governmental organization that works on behalf of the families of the victims.

More information about the Amnesty International National Week of Student Action is available at www.amnestyusa.org/nwsa.

The sponsor of the events is the Middlebury College chapter of Amnesty International. Several Middlebury College student organizations are co-sponsors: Feminist Action at Middlebury, Alianza Latinoamericana y Caribeña, Vitality of the Artistic Community Association, and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

Donations at the concert will be accepted at the door in cash or check only. For more information, contact Julia Davidson, president of Amnesty International at Middlebury College, at jedavids@middlebury.edu or 802-443-6545.

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