April 26, 2006, Grand Rapids, Mich. - This Saturday, April 29, a group of students from Calvin College and Cornerstone University will make an approximately eight-mile trek from the Calvin campus to downtown Rosa Parks Circle where they plan to spend the night.
They will be taking part in the Global Night Commute, a nationwide effort being planned by students in cities across the country (almost 140 cities at last count).
As of this week there were 36,000 people around the country, and beyond, planning to take part in the upcoming Global Night Commute (Canada, Ireland and Norway are among the other countries already signed on).
That includes almost 1,000 people in Grand Rapids who will take part, among them the Calvin and Cornerstone students.
The Global Night Commute will be a re-enactment of the commute made nightly by the Acholi children of northern Uganda. Each evening those children leave their villages and walk to city centers to avoid being kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).
"The LRA will raid villages and take the kids and force them to become fighters or kill them," says Calvin sophomore Daniel Wiersma, 20, who is organizing the Calvin commute in an effort to raise awareness of the situation.
Both awareness and policy change are overdue, according to George Monsma, a Calvin professor of economics and business who this year and in 2004 taught a January Interim class in Uganda.
The students from Calvin and Cornerstone plan to connect at Calvin at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 29 to watch the movie Invisible Children, a documentary on the plight of the Acholi children made by Invisible Children, Inc., the organizers of the Global Night Commute.
After the screening, the students will make the hike to Rosa Parks Circle.
For more information, contact Daniel Wiersma at 616-526-1320. For the full story, including a link to the Global Night Commute site, visit http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2005_06/global_commute.htm
Calvin College is affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church in North America and is recognized as a center for faith-based liberal arts teaching and scholarship.
................... Henry Hess Director of Communications The Christian Reformed Church To learn more about the Christian Reformed Church visit www.crcna.org