Students lead efforts to confront international challenges
Skidmore College students are taking action this week to address issues of international concern -the earthquake in Japan and poverty in northern Uganda.
There will be a vigil to honor those who have suffered from the disaster caused by the March 11 earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan at 5 p.m. Friday, March 25, outside of Case Center. Members of the Asian Cultural Awareness club and Nihongo, the Skidmore Japanese club, will assist those attending in making paper cranes and lighting candles to mourn lost ones.
The Saratoga Springs community is welcome at the event, which is being coordinated by Sergio Hernandez, a member of Skidmore's Class of 2012.
Also on Friday, March 25, the Skidmore chapter of Bicycles Against Poverty will host a dinner and guest speaker. "Empty Bowls for Bikes," is scheduled from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, March 25, in the Spa on the lower level of Case College Center.
Participants in the event will receive a locally made bowl that comes with a complementary dinner made by Zander Meyers, a French Culinary Institute graduate. Along with the dinner and bowls, the founder of Bicycles Against Poverty (BAP), Muyambi Muyambi, will talk about the mission of the club and about poverty relief through his sustainable bicycle loan program.
Muyambi
Muyambi Muyambi was raised in Kampala, Uganda, where he attended primary school before leaving Uganda to attend United World College Norway. In the summer of 2007 Muyambi visited several decongestant camps in Gulu, Uganda, which are now home to thousands of people who were displaced by the insurgency of Joseph Kony's Lords Resistance Army (LRA). The darkest hours of the LRA's violence in Uganda have passed, but the wounds of the Acholi people of northern Uganda are still very much apparent. Many of the people now living in the decongestant camps in which BAP operates lost parents, siblings, and children to Joseph Kony's army. Their ways of life have been altered as the villages they now live in are far different from before the war.While at the camp in Gulu, Muyambi recognized that the people of Gulu needed more than just a home, mattresses and medication or water. There was a great need for sustainable development. "These people will cycle to prosperity," Muyambi said.
In 2008 Muyambi received grants from the Davis Projects for Peace Program and the Clinton Global Initiative. Bicycles Against Poverty is now serving more than 400 individuals in the Gulu and Amuru districts of northern Uganda, who use the bicycle to collect water, bring their children to school, transport crops to the market, and travel to and from the hospital.
The bowl, dinner, and discussion will cost $7 for students and $12 for non-students. All proceeds go directly toward Bicycles Against Poverty's bicycle loan program in northern Uganda. James Lyness and Tyler Orfao, members of Skidmore's Class of 2013, are organizing the dinner.