DAC Presents the New Board of Directors

Dear Friends of Justice, Peace and Development:

The Darfur Alert Coalition (DAC) is pleased to announce the formation of a new board of directors. The new board elected on August 27, 2006, will be led by its world reknown Sudanese scholar and president, Dr. Ali B. Ali-Dinar, while the management and daily activities of DAC remain in the most capable leadership hands of Lou Ann Merkle, our DAC Executive Director.

The DAC board of directors is a diverse assembly of American and Sudanese activists and academics --- all leaders in their various areas of activist work --- committed to ending the genocide and general conditions of oppression now prevailing in the Darfur region of Sudan. Represented on the board are a broadly diverse mix of people, including: Jews, Christians and Muslims, secular activists, European and African Americans, students, women and, most significantly, members from the Darfur immigrant community living in the Philadelphia metro and Delaware Valley area.

It’s not often when likeminded leaders with the gifts of imagination, dedication and commitment to engage in struggle gather together for a great humanitarian purpose. Fortunately for DAC this is just what happened on August 27th! With a new board of directors now in place, we of the Darfur Alert Coalition hope to intensify our work and reinforce our efforts to help in the great international and humanitarian task of resolving the crisis in Darfur.

New Darfur Alert Coalition board members are:

Officers of the Executive Committee
Dr. Ali Dinar, President; Jim Remsen, Vice President; Fatima Haroun, Vice President; Corresponding Secretary, Dr. A.S. Mahdi Ibn-Ziyad; Ibrahim Hamid, Treasurer; Lou Ann Merkle, Executive Director (ex officio)

Committee Directors
Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim, Education Director; Tigani Abu Algasim, Volunteering Director; Ken Heard, Registeration Committee; Suad Mansour, Darfur Programs Director; Ibrahim Hamid, Fundraising Director; Rita Fitzgerald, Advocacy Director; and Burt Siegel, Communications Director.

Like all of our Darfurian friends in the in-country refugee camps and here in the Philadelphia metro area our prayers and our struggles are for first for a just resolution that brings security, peace and stability to the region. Thereafter, we pray for economic and social development initiatives in Darfur that will allow the thousands of displaced women, men, children and families to return home and restore a sense of normalcy and dignity to their lives as they advance in improving material well-being.

To these ends the new DAC board of directors has dedicated its vision and work for the coming period.

Sincerely,

Dr. A.S. Mahdi Ibn-Ziyad
DAC Corresponding Secretary