The Colby Echo

Issue date: 4/9/08 Section: Features

Media Credit: Courtesy of Kathleen Maynard

On the evening of Saturday April 5th, the crooning tones of the College's own Blue Lights, the Colbyettes, Dori Smith '08 and several other student artists could be heard emanating from Bixler's Given Auditorium during the Sierra Leone Aid Project (SLAP) Benefit concert taking place within. The concert was one in a series of events orchestrated by a student organization dedicated to building lasting peace through malaria prevention in Sierra Leone.

The group was started in 2004 by several students, including Emily Mosites '06, who is now working toward her master's in epidemiology at Yale University, and Erin Rhoda '06, who now coordinates the Maine Ghana Youth Network. The organization sent a group to Sierra Leone in the summer of 2006 to distribute bed nets and carry out education efforts on malaria in several villages around the city of Bo. Bo is the hometown of David Amadu '07, another founding member of the student organization. Amadu continues to be involved with the organization, and will travel with the group of students going for a second aid-trip this summer.

Kirsten Duda '09 is currently spearheading the organization on campus and she described logistics for this summer's expedition with precision and enthusiasm. "We will distributing 1500 bed nets, and of the 1500, 500 of them will be made within Sierra Leone. The materials will be transported by a company called BedNet International based in Thailand, then sewn by a tailoring business in Sierra Leone." Out of the eight core members present at Colby, three of them-Duda, Fiona Braslau '10 and Amy Eklund '11- will travel to Africa in June.

Duda described the group's increasing popularity on campus as very encouraging, particularly with respect to people's willingness to become involved in fundraising and planning efforts. After the increase in numbers last fall, Duda was fearful that everyone would be determined to travel but soon realized otherwise. "It was strange to go from being afraid of everyone wanting to go, to being afraid that nobody would want to go."

During its sojourn in Sierra Leone, the group will spend its first week in the capital Freetown before moving to the second largest city, Bo. It will focus distribution, manufacturing and educational efforts in four small villages that lie within three miles of Bo. Having a local support structure and focusing distribution in a specific area should increase the effectiveness of net distribution. "The malaria education component of our project will be centered around a comedic skit, which will be performed in each village by a local comedic skit troupe that we hire. We also hope to put up billboards, a strategy for increasing public awareness that has been used for other communities to advertise protection against HIV/AIDS and domestic violence." A core attitude of the project is that education is key in promoting sustainability and peace within a region.

Continued...

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