Messages like “We will come” and “Don’t lose hope” were scrawled across worn canvas tents lining the West campus’s Fletcher Lawn Wednesday as part of the genocide-awareness demonstration “Camp Darfur.”

The tents have been traveling across the country since 2007, and will be on the West campus until Thursday.

Each tent represents one of five human rights crises: genocides in Armenia, Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur and the Holocaust.

While visitors outside the tents wrote messages on the canvas, those inside learned more about genocide around the world.

“It’s about understanding genocide and how it has impacted our world,” said Student Engagement coordinator Katie Fischer, who helped bring the exhibit to ASU.

“Camp Darfur” is part of a series of social awareness events held throughout the year on the West campus titled “Four Realms of Discovery.”

Fischer said the series is a response to interest on the West campus for more socially conscious events.

Many ASU West students are enrolled in the social justice and human rights master’s program, and often volunteer for and attend the events, she said.

“We try to find and plan events that will give students a good idea of what is going on globally,” Fischer said. “It’s not your typical lecture or concert.”

Clubs with booths at “Camp Darfur” include Darfur and Beyond, Save Darfur and Amnesty International.

During Thursday’s event, Holocaust survivor Magda Herzberger will speak at 11:30 a.m.

Nuha Sarraj, a political science junior and the president of Kurdish Youth Club, said while she supports the idea behind the event, she was unhappy with the content.

“I was very disappointed to not see any discussion of Kurdistan, or the two genocides of the Halabja and Anfal people committed by the Iraqi regime,” she said. “There are 200,000 people dead and mass displacement. Why isn’t that information here?”

Gabriel Stauring, founder and director of the grassroots organization Stop Genocide Now, travels with the exhibit and said the group tries to promote awareness of genocides all over the world, but that its reach is limited.

“We’d have to travel with 100 tents to cover them all,” he said. “You could interchange all the names on the tents, and you’d have the same situation in which the world has ignored genocide.”

Stauring also brings artwork by American and Sudanese children to the exhibit.

The sheets of canvas were first colored by American children, Stauring said, and then taken to Darfur for the children there to see and respond to.

On one sheet, an American child painted a heart and the word “Love.” A Darfurian child responded on the reverse side with images of his village occupied by helicopters and tanks.

Stauring said the images help people understand the crisis from a very human perspective.

Psychology sophomore Sana Aneen said she hopes the images and tents will encourage visitors to reach out to these victims of genocide.

“Any student who comes out here and can hear about it has the chance to do something about it,” she said.

Reach the reporter at jessica.testa@asu.edu.