Students, faculty, staff, and community members gathered in Martin Chapel last Saturday for a dinner on raising awareness about Ebola and its effects on children in West Africa. The event was organized by the members of the International Student Organization (ISO): Seniors Gee Paegar, Sun Ju Lee, and Victoria Gunawan, Juniors Zoe Parakuo, Kaltuma Noorow, Brenda Soka, Danika Saucedo, Nandi Onetu, Sophomore Winifred Gray-Johnson, First-years Marcus Ekman and Wael Gamtessa, along with graduate student Norah Alobikan.
Through the connections of the former director of the Practice and Training Institute of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, Jan Jenner, Nobel Peace Prize winner and graduate of the Center for Justice and Peace program Leymah Gbowee made herself available to speak at several events that day, while paying for her own expenses.
The dinner was first, followed by a public address by Gbowee in Lehman auditorium and a dessert/talk back in Common Grounds for students. The idea for these events originated with Gray-Johnson from Liberia who spoke about the fear and worry she experienced at the thought that her father or sisters could catch Ebola. When she talked to the director of Multicultural studies Susannah Lepley about her worries, Lepley encouraged her to do something productive with her fear, and thus the planning for the events began.
The dinner featured different speakers from ISO, including Co-President Kaltuma Noorow, Junior, who spoke about the stories that she heard about Ebola while growing up in Kenya, and a prayer in Korean by Lee. Gbowee detailed the deaths that Ebola has caused and the difficulty that many countries experienced in combating it because of poor health systems and lack of faith in governments. Gbowee also spoke about the West’s influence on the problem, saying “that the portrayal of the west as a savior is not accurate.”
She praised highly the efforts of Liberia in dealing with Ebola, crediting their resilience to a strong civil society and an “attitude of we can.”
She spoke about how empowering local groups was the way to fix the Ebola problem in West Africa, saying that “local communities need to be taking charge of the problem, not the West.”
The sickness has also affected Gbowee herself. When her father died she was unable to move his body from Ghana to Liberia because they had cancelled any commercial flights. She talked about the emotional and physical effects that Ebola has created in Liberia, telling an anecdote about a niece being afraid to hug her because of the possibility of Ebola. “People were separated and couldn’t connect,” Gbowee said.
While Gbowee spoke about a disconnect in West Africa because of the illness, students spoke about a deep connection they had felt to each other when planning this event. Johnson talked about how they bonded during the challenges and preparations that ISO worked with in the months leading up to events.
She joked that all of the ISO members and Lepley were “honorary Liberians” because of all the hard work they put in for the events. The combination of the dinner, and donations collected at the address and the Common Grounds dessert event totaled $4,000 for the GSA Rockhill Community Women in Monrovia and Messengers of Peace, a youth outreach program.
Written by: Devon Fore, Co-Editor in Chief