Using Music to Help Heal Sierra Leone Youth
by Jason Miks
After being wracked by a ten-year civil war,
the problem of healing in Sierra Leone is
challenging. This is especially so for the tens of
thousands of children who were
caught up in the conflict and are now returning to
school, but who feel disillusioned, distracted, and
marginalized.
In an effort to meet this challenge RESPECT, in
association with the iEARN Sierra Leone, and Peace
Pals Education Network (PPEN), have been
collaborating with Bryan Berkett of "Jozoor" to
find some innovative ways of bringing young Sierra
Leonans together.
Mr. Berkett has founded Rappers United by Beating AIDS,
a musical project he says gives youth the tools
they need to help themselves. He believes by
writing and recording music, children in Africa become
more engaged with AIDS education than they
otherwise would and are more likely to absorb the
information.
more>>
The Refugees
by Don Schaeffer
The package arrived yesterday,
a little dog-eared from a
mission in Uganda.
It contained little bits
of the lives of eight
children of God.
They honored me because
I volunteered to teach them
fragments of a profession that
abandoned me years ago,
and thereby to bring
myself back to life.
There they were,
having escaped the bullets,
sitting on benches in
an arid camp,
barely able to find
these sheets of foolscap,
and fill them with language,
and arouse hopes,
and wait for the reply
of an abandoned man
from a cold place.
© 2004 by Don Schaeffer, Used by permission of
the author.
RESPECT Board Meeting Held
by Marc Schaeffer
RESPECT International had its fifth board meeting on Sunday, June 27th.
Board members from outside the Winnipeg area attended online. Each
vice president discussed their activities over the last quarter and plans
for the next. It was a very productive meeting; below are some things RESPECT
plans to accomplish by September, 2004.
- RESPECT plans to update its website.
- Refugees 101, an online course in refugee awareness, plans to launch its beta-version.
- RESPECT handbook should be available online.
- RESPECT wants to produce a video to document its work by September, 2005!
Questions, comments, or suggestions can be sent to board members at
board@respectrefugees.org.
