UT will host a conference sponsored by STAND, a national student anti-genocide coalition, to educate high school and college students about genocide in Darfur, Sudan, starting Friday.

The majority of UT students attending the conference are members of the White Rose Society, a local chapter of STAND and a Holocaust remembrance and genocide awareness group, said Leran Minc, government junior and state outreach coordinator for the White Rose Society.

"The goal of the conference is to unite this big movement to end genocide all over the country and world," Minc said. "The whole movement has really been motivated by students, so the conference tries to ensure that this continues and that students fuel the fight against genocide."

Approximately 80 students from 11 different states plan to attend this weekend's conference, which is one of six put on across the United States, Minc said.

"Students take what they learned at the conference and apply it to their own states and schools to raise awareness and get in touch with the media about the genocide in Darfur," said Monique Bird, Midwest regional coordinator for STAND.

Mark Hanis, the executive director of the Genocide Intervention Network, the parent organization of STAND, will give the keynote address, and several UT professors will lead workshops at the conference, Minc said.

"It's a way of improving individual activism and group activism all over campus - for students to really develop as a leader, and then take what they learned back to their own campuses and make their programs stronger," Minc said.

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