Liberian Restaurant Opens in Indy

The Indianapolis Star reports that a new restaurant featuring the cuisine of Liberia has opened on the northwest side of Indy. Dekontee Spot is located at 3037 Lafayette Road, Indianapolis. Hours are noon to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

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Humanitarian Intervention Symposium at DePauw

Noted international humanitarian leaders will come to DePauw University in Greencastle Thursday through Sunday (5-7 March) for a series of panel discussions.

Gareth Evans, the former foreign minister of Australia, will provide the opening address for the Humanitarian Intervention Symposium, hosted by the Janet Prindle Institute for Ethics in collaboration with the West Africa Regional Bureau of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Among the others scheduled to participate in the sessions are Karen Koning AbuZayd, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency; Catherine Dumait-Harper, board member for the Global Policy Forum and former U.N. representative of Médecins Sans Frontièrs (Doctors Without Borders); Jerry Fowler, executive director of the Save Darfur Foundation; Anne Orford, professor and director of the Institute for International Law and the Humanities at Melbourne University, Australia; and Amos Sawyer, former president of the interim government of Liberia.

For the complete schedule plus details on attending, go online.

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Twenty Tons of Textbooks!

A project organized by two University of Indianapolis students has collected nearly 900 boxes - about 20 tons - of textbooks for use by impoverished students in West Africa, reports UIndy's news bureau.

The book drive is the latest venture by senior Lydia Fischer and junior Lyndsay McBride (pictured), whose interest in African education began with a 2007 UIndy service trip to build a schoolhouse in rural Liberia.

Inspired upon their return, they launched their own aid group, Inches International, to further support education in Africa. The two students designed and marketed colorful aluminum bracelets at $5 each, selling more than 3,000 so far to generate scholarship funds for students in war-torn Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Like the bracelet revenue, the books are being delivered through Operation Classroom, a not-for-profit organization that supports United Methodist-affiliated schools and healthcare efforts in Africa.

Fischer, McBride and other volunteers inside and outside the university had been collecting, sorting and boxing used textbooks for about a year, storing them in a vacant building near the UIndy campus. On 21 November, the volunteers loaded the books into a semitrailer for delivery to an Operation Classroom warehouse in Lapel.

Now the Inches International volunteers are trying to raise the $12,000 necessary to ship a 40-foot container of books to West Africa. Email 'em to donate!

Bracelet Project Aids West African Education

Lydia Fischer and Lyndsay McBride (pictured), students at the University of Indianapolis, created Inches International after a service trip to Liberia last year.

Fischer, McBride and several other UIndy students, staff and faculty members raised money and spent three weeks in Liberia in May 2007 working alongside residents of a rural village – without running water or power tools – to build a six-classroom schoolhouse. Fischer and McBride couldn’t shake the idea that they should somehow continue the mission, the school reported.

The two students, both graphic design majors, designed the bracelets, a logo, a brochure and a Web site to publicize the project. Available in nine colors, the bracelets bear ruler marks and the phrase "by inches". The students contracted with a sheet metal company to produce the items at a cost of about a dollar each, which means the vast majority of the $5 purchase price is funneled to a United Methodist-affiliated charity, Operation Classroom, to fund schooling for children in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

They've already sold more than 1,000 bracelets -- for every 20 bracelets sold, an impoverished African child can attend a year of school.

President Sirleaf Gets Honorary Doctorate from IU

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (pictured), the first woman elected as president of Liberia or of any African country, will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Indiana University 3 May in recognition of her efforts to promote peace, justice and democracy, and of the close relations between her country and IU, according to the IU News Bureau.

Sirleaf will receive the degree during IU Bloomington's 2008 spring commencement ceremonies, which will begin at 10 a.m. in Assembly Hall. She also will join IU President Michael McRobbie and other IU faculty leaders at the afternoon commencement session beginning at 3 p.m.