Kris Houghton ('08) Organizes Darfur Fundraiser

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Motivation in Suffering of Others

By Jim Belshaw of the Journal

One answer seldom does the job of explaining choices, the whys and wherefores of involvement.

Trying to divine the motivation of a group of people just compounds the difficulty.

Then consider that the object of their motivation is a world away, suffering a genocidal nightmare and maybe you're better off using a simple yardstick, something more manageable to get a handle on the question.

T-shirts, for instance.

Should you be interested in a Run for Darfur T-shirt, the kind you might see worn over at the UNM law school, you'll have to be patient, unless you're blessed with a marathoner's body and you can squeeze into a "small."

Kris Houghton ran out of everything but "smalls" in about 21/2 days.

This may not answer the question of motivation, but it's at least a decent measure of involvement.

UNM law professor Erik Gerding said people cheered when he wore the T-shirt in the recent Duke City Marathon.

Jennifer Moore, another law professor, said something happened this year that she'd not seen before.

There had been other Darfur fundraisers, other attempts to ease the suffering in Sudan, but they usually saw two or three people involved.

This year, Kris Houghton, a second-year law student, managed to bring together 10 percent of the faculty and student body to run for Darfur in the Duke City Marathon.

"Kris took international law from Professor (Norman) Bay and myself," Moore said. "He was very interested in problems of war and displacement in central Africa. I told him that in the past we had this run and fundraiser for Darfur, but it was more of a symbolic thing. He gave a presentation at the international law students' organization and a certain critical mass was reached."

Houghton, a serious runner who finished his first marathon at the age of 10, said he remembered seeing a quote about Darfur "just being Rwanda in slow motion."

The world did little to prevent the slaughter in Rwanda. He thought the world could do better.

"I thought, all right, let's do something small and see what we can do," he said. "Here's a chance for me to step in and do something. Whatever we do will be positive."

He put together seven teams of runners from the law school. Two of the runners were Larry Horan and Ed Perea, both former APD police officers now attending law school.

"When you're involved in the police department, one of the things that drives you to that kind of service is that you're concerned about what's happening in your community," Perea said. "We saw this as an opportunity to expand on that philosophy on an international level."

Houghton, who trains with Kenyan runners for the Olympic trials, wants to put together another run next year devoted completely to raising funds for Darfur. (The Duke City Marathon raised cancer research funds. The Darfur funds came largely from Houghton's T-shirt sales and other donations.)

"I train with a group of Africans, and they would say why Africa?" he said. "I said, well, people are dying in Africa of genocide. For me that's the first level: If you can't protect innocent human life from senseless killing, then where do you start? For me, that's where you start. If innocent lives are being taken, who am I to let it go on?"

Write to Jim Belshaw at The Albuquerque Journal, P.O. Drawer J, Albuquerque, NM 87103; telephone— 823-3930; e-mail—jbelshaw@abqjournal.com.