December 2001 Volume 5, Issue 1
VOICES OF HOPE
On Saturday October 2000-2001 Communities of African refugees/immigrants gathered at Faneuil Hall to pay tribute to the survivors of September 11 incident. The event was commarated by songs, poems from many cultures of various groups. One of the organizers Tory Krua from Universal Human Rights International summed up the main message of the gathering when he read "Refugees in America know about terror and loss. They know about grief, survival and rebuilding.
A SHARED MOMENT I was one of those who walked to help the Menagesha Cheshire Home For Physically Handicapped Children in the year 1999, about a year before I came to the United States. One afternoon I was visiting the children recovering from operations and confined to bed in the Recovery Room.
A charming young girl with a smile on her face greeted me as if I was her sister. I had seen her during a visit to the Center some three weeks earlier. She obviously noticed me then and was overwhelmed to see me again. I guess she was right. She was one of the additional sixty children from different regions of the country who had come to the center to benefit from surgical rehabilitation that was offered by the medical team of visiting Indian Rotarians for a limited period of time. She told me that she was from the northern part of Ethiopia, that it was her first time in Addis Ababa (the capital city of Ethiopia) and that she knew no one. I could imagine how hard it must be for her I felt like talking so I sat beside her and started chatting. Her leg was still in plaster as it had been when I first saw her and I asked her how she was feeling. She smiled shyly and said that the pain had been continuous but that as many people had come to visit because it was the “ Annual Walk Day” and now that I was chatting to her, it seemed to have disappeared. She laughed again and I laughed with her.
I had never thought about bringing happiness to the children at the Center by just paying a visit and chatting for a while with them. I spent two years of rehabilitation at Menagesha myself when I was a child and remember the joy we all felt when visitors came but I had forgotten the extent until I talked to this girl. I was glad to be able to take her mind off her pain and homesickness for a while but deep in my heart I understood that this problem was common to all the children in the home. I was even more touched later on when some of the children told me that seeing what I could do now had given them hope, I remember one young boy said to me I want to go to school and when I grow up I want to become a Doctor which made the pain even more bearable because I realized that most of the children in the home can’t read and write.
I thought I was lucky I was able to go to the near by school in my days at the home so I did not have to miss any time of my school years. Due to limited resource, the home can’t send the children to school anymore neither can it hire a tutor for them at the home.
At the end of the day, on my way home, I was talking to my self, what does the future hold for these children if they can’t go to school. These children are the men and women of tomorrow, with a great deal of social, economic, political and cultural responsibility to carry. Now, today, they need the care, attention, a sense of belonging and most importantly love in their lives, which most of them can’t get very often. Therefore, it would be best if we could all help in some small way to give them what they deserve today so that they can lead a good quality of life and be potential citizens of their country and the world at large in the future.
By Elleni Moges
VOICES OF HOPE
On Saturday October 2000-2001 Communities of African refugees/immigrants gathered at Faneuil Hall to pay tribute to the survivors of September 11 incident. The event was commarated by songs, poems from many cultures of various groups. One of the organizers Tory Krua from Universal Human Rights International summed up the main message of the gathering when he read "Refugees in America know about terror and loss. They know about grief, survival and rebuilding.
A SHARED MOMENT I was one of those who walked to help the Menagesha Cheshire Home For Physically Handicapped Children in the year 1999, about a year before I came to the United States. One afternoon I was visiting the children recovering from operations and confined to bed in the Recovery Room.
A charming young girl with a smile on her face greeted me as if I was her sister. I had seen her during a visit to the Center some three weeks earlier. She obviously noticed me then and was overwhelmed to see me again. I guess she was right. She was one of the additional sixty children from different regions of the country who had come to the center to benefit from surgical rehabilitation that was offered by the medical team of visiting Indian Rotarians for a limited period of time. She told me that she was from the northern part of Ethiopia, that it was her first time in Addis Ababa (the capital city of Ethiopia) and that she knew no one. I could imagine how hard it must be for her I felt like talking so I sat beside her and started chatting. Her leg was still in plaster as it had been when I first saw her and I asked her how she was feeling. She smiled shyly and said that the pain had been continuous but that as many people had come to visit because it was the “ Annual Walk Day” and now that I was chatting to her, it seemed to have disappeared. She laughed again and I laughed with her.
I had never thought about bringing happiness to the children at the Center by just paying a visit and chatting for a while with them. I spent two years of rehabilitation at Menagesha myself when I was a child and remember the joy we all felt when visitors came but I had forgotten the extent until I talked to this girl. I was glad to be able to take her mind off her pain and homesickness for a while but deep in my heart I understood that this problem was common to all the children in the home. I was even more touched later on when some of the children told me that seeing what I could do now had given them hope, I remember one young boy said to me I want to go to school and when I grow up I want to become a Doctor which made the pain even more bearable because I realized that most of the children in the home can’t read and write.
I thought I was lucky I was able to go to the near by school in my days at the home so I did not have to miss any time of my school years. Due to limited resource, the home can’t send the children to school anymore neither can it hire a tutor for them at the home.
At the end of the day, on my way home, I was talking to my self, what does the future hold for these children if they can’t go to school. These children are the men and women of tomorrow, with a great deal of social, economic, political and cultural responsibility to carry. Now, today, they need the care, attention, a sense of belonging and most importantly love in their lives, which most of them can’t get very often. Therefore, it would be best if we could all help in some small way to give them what they deserve today so that they can lead a good quality of life and be potential citizens of their country and the world at large in the future.
By Elleni Moges
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