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John Moore of Springfield looks over material explaining how donations will help people in West Africa.
David Moore helped found Students Empowering the Poor at the University of Mary Washington this fall.
James 'J.B.' Hope and his father, Mike Hope, perform at the Students Empowering the Poor fundraiser at Hurkamp Park on yesterday. |
By ROB HEDELT
When University of Mary Washington seniors Kelly Landau and Dave Moore started their morning yesterday, they weren't leisurely sipping coffee or checking e-mails from friends.
Soon after the sun was up, they joined a dozen or so other students setting up tables, mounting posters and hooking up sound for musicians at a carnival in Fredericksburg's Hurkamp Park to raise money for poor Africans in a village a world away.
"We were there in Tonhon in Côte d'Ivoire this past summer," said Moore, president the Students Empowering the Poor chapter at UMW. "We saw the conditions that the children live in--festering sores because they have no bandages or medicines, bloated bellies from lack of food, hair turning yellow from malnutrition."
Landau, who is originally from South Africa, said she was struck by the poverty and hopelessness that locked so many of the people of the West African nation into their dire circumstances.
Especially when just a small sum of money, what we in this country would consider a pittance, might drastically improve lives.
"We met several women who had been seamstresses but had turned to prostitution because they no longer had sewing machines," said Landau. "Something as simple as $30 for a basic machine would let them live totally different lives."
NEEDS ARE BASIC
Moore and Landau said they got involved with the group initially through a course in economic development at Mary Washington.
Along with several others in the class, they listened as Darius Coulibaly--founder of the Fredericksburg-based group Empowering the Poor Inc.--outlined various problems faced by the people in the West African country where he grew up, Côte d'Ivoire.
The idea, and the eventual reality, was that after seeking practical solutions to some of the problems rooted in poor health care and poverty, some students would actually go to Tonhon to try to implement those real-world solutions.
Moore and Landau did that, though the malaria control project they began with eventually gave way to a larger effort to take a comprehensive look at the most basic needs of people in the village.
Coulibaly, who teaches at Chancellor High School, accompanied the students. He said they came away believing that the most compelling needs were in education, basic health care and "micro-finance," loans of from $25 to $200.
"The latter could be something as simple as loaning a father in a house $25 for a corn grinder, because it would drastically change how much corn he could process," said Moore, who helped found the student chapter of the group this fall.
The focus of the student and parent group right now is raising $75,000 to build a minimal health care center in the mining village.
"We put up a temporary one of sorts when we were there this summer," said Moore, who grew up in Sterling and has been abroad on several service and mission trips. "Our hope is to go back this summer with many more students to put up something that's permanent."
NOT JUST A HANDOUT
Landau, who wants to go to grad school and then go back to help develop sustainable agriculture in Africa, said the visit to Tonhon really affected her.
"Growing up in South Africa, I'd seen some difficult situations, but seeing how these villagers in Tonhon are truly happy, despite their conditions, really hit me," she said. "It made me mad coming back here and seeing people try to find happiness by buying or accomplishing one more thing when we already have or have gotten to do so much."
Coulibaly and volunteers from his group joined the students yesterday in organizing games, doing face-painting, selling food and spreading the word while soliciting donations. They raised about $500.
He said he hopes to create more partnerships with local churches and businesses, many of whom, he says, have already been generous.
"Our basic idea, though, isn't just giving a handout," he said. "It's helping or teaching people how to achieve a better life for themselves. And we want to do that here in this country as well as in places like Tonhon."'
empoweringthepoor.orgRob Hedelt: 540/374-5415
Email: rhedelt@freelancestar.com
