|
Dancers raising funds for education |
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
By Debbie L. Hochberg
Staff Writer
An eight-year-old girl lives with her two sisters and parents in a two-room adobe mud-block house in poverty stricken Ethiopia. To get to and from school, she must walk two miles each way, navigating hills.
But she is one of the lucky ones.
Sofia Kedir is sponsored by the Children of Ethiopia Education Fund, an organization that gives her the opportunity to attend school — a privilege for young girls in Ethiopia, most of whom are forced to discontinue their education at a young age in order to help their families.
On Tuesday night, as part of a United States tour, pint-sized Sofia danced center stage at the South Orange Performing Arts Center so that more Ethiopian girls can have what all Americans consider a right — access to education.
Sofia led this Ethiopian troupe of eleven girls, ranging in age from eight to 12, through a stunning performance of native song and dance, which had the sold-out audience clapping and whistling.
For Sofia and the others, however, it wasn’t always like this. For many other hungry children in Ethiopia things have not changed.
Thanks to one man and one woman, more than 800 children like Sofia are now being sponsored, and the hope is that through this United States tour, money can be raised to give many more the same opportunity.
Norm Perdue, his wife Ruthann and their four daughters were living the good life in Utah. Norm Perdue had a dual career as an OSHA procurement officer and as an NBA photographer for the Utah Jazz basketball team.
In 2001 Perdue had a chance meeting — at a basketball game — with an old friend whose children were grown.
Perdue couldn’t help but notice that the friend arrived at the game with five young adopted Ethiopian children, not a common sight in Salt Lake City.
Perdue’s curiosity was piqued and when his friends planned a humanitarian mission to the Ethiopian village of their children’s birth, Perdue and his family decided to go.
Once in Ethiopia, the Perdue family could not believe what they saw.
“There were starving children on the side of the road with bloated bellies,” Norm said. “You see it on TV but then you change the channel. Being there, it was tough. But the more we were with the children, the more we fell in love with them.”
At the beginning of the weeklong mission, where medical help was given and a water system was introduced to a small village, a young Ethiopian girl approached Norm and almost immediately asked him if she could have his watch.
Perdue did not give her the watch, but as the week wore on this little girl continued to come around. Perdue. Noticing her fine English, by the end of the week, he asked her how she spoke so well. She told him that her grandmother works at the school sweeping floors to pay her tuition.
That night, about to go back home, Perdue could not sleep. He tossed and turned, wondering what would happen to this bright little girl if her grandmother fell ill and she could no longer attend school.
“I couldn’t stand the thought of her not being in this nice school,” Perdue said.
The next day, Perdue found out that the school cost $100 a year and donated $200.
“That’s how COEFF started, with this one girl asking me if she could have my watch,” he said. When Perdue returned home and told friends about his trip, they began to ask if they, too, could sponsor a girl.
Just a short time away from his retirement, Perdue stopped working to devote all of his energies to his newfound calling. The organization caught on, but with no money being used for advertising, spreading the word on a national
level can be difficult.
That is where the Mesgana Dancers come in.
“I woke up in the middle of the night, and the idea just came to me,” Perdue said.
Perdue had seen the girls dance many times in Ethiopia. With no TV, computers or video game systems, the children concentrate on other activities, like dancing, which is taught to them by their mothers and grandmothers. And many of the girls, Perdue noticed, were quite extraordinary.
The idea for a traveling dance troupe became a reality for the first time last year, and Tuesday night’s sold-out performance in South Orange was part of the second summer world tour of the Mesgana Dancers with performances across the country from California to Colorado to Washington D.C. and New York.
A community conversation with the girls was held at the South Orange Public Library on Tuesday afternoon and an African marketplace with vendors and live African music was held at SOPAC before Tuesday night’s performance.
Also on hand, was a representative from Ethiopia Reads, an organization placing books in the hands of the students there, to try to raise money and solicit donations of books, a rare commodity in Ethiopia.
To help or for more information visit www.coeef.org, or call 801-264-0099.
Source: Local Source
|
|
Mesgana Calendar
 |
July 2008 |
 |
|
|
