Bridging differences

Some 9,000 miles—and almost incalculable political, economic, and social differences— separate the western United States and East Africa. Lewis & Clark students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends are bridging the distance by advancing the principle that has guided the College’s international education programs for more than 40 years: global understanding is rooted in relationships, and relationships are built day by day and person to person.

Last year, when a drought exacerbated the already overwhelming humanitarian crisis in East Africa, the power of relationships was proved again. As Valarie Hunsinger and Josh Silverman noted in the March 24, 2006, Pioneer Log, students who took part in the College’s overseas study program in Kenya and Tanzania responded quickly and compassionately to the crisis for an overriding reason: it was very personal. “These are people we met and lived with, not just victims of another famine in the world,” says Megan Clark ’06.

Students organized the Moja Campaign, which quickly raised more than $1,400 to aid the U.N. World Food Program in East Africa. Spurred by the goal of raising one dollar for each undergraduate student at Lewis & Clark, students named the campaign “moja,” the Swahili word for one. As Theresa Likarish ’07 noted in the Pio Log, “A dollar is so little to us; not even enough for a soda in a lot of cases. In Africa, a poor family lives off three dollars a month.” After the initial fund-raising, Moja group members continued educating the Lewis & Clark community about the crisis in Africa. Says Likarish, “It’s not a matter of charity. It is a matter of justice.”

Oregon and Africa also came together when an idea that began with students emerged as the Roméo Dallaire Scholarship at Lewis & Clark College. Named in honor of the former commander of the U.N. Peacekeeping Mission to Rwanda, the scholarship allows qualified students from sub Saharan Africa to pursue higher education in the College’s Academic English Studies program. Romeo Umulisa was the first student to benefit from the scholarship. Active in reconciliation issues in Rwanda, he writes and directs documentaries about the 1994 genocide there and about other human rights concerns, noting, “I want to tell people what happened and why, but I’m not only interested in the dark side of the story. I want to tell about what Rwanda can offer today.”

It is precisely such a shared focus on learning and telling the whole story—on building a future informed but not controlled by a dark past and uncertain present—that bridges the miles and cultural distinctions between western Oregon and eastern Africa.