Immigrant Success

Your Ethnic Hoosier usually avoids policy, but this comment from Thomas Friedman's column in today's New York Times needs to be shared. As we in the Nationalities Council of Indiana know, the United States is constantly renewed --and improved -- by its immigrants. This says it all:

"Last week, the 32 winners of Rhodes Scholarships for 2011 were announced — America’s top college grads. Here are half the names on that list: Mark Jia, Aakash Shah, Zujaja Tauqeer, Tracy Yang, William Zeng, Daniel Lage, Ye Jin Kang, Baltazar Zavala, Esther Uduehi, Prerna Nadathur, Priya Sury, Anna Alekeyeva, Fatima Sabar, Renugan Raidoo, Jennifer Lai, Varun Sivaram."

Yes, Indiana's winner is Esther O. Uduehi (pictured, at left) of Evansville. Her parents emigrated from Nigeria. A senior at Indiana University, Bloomington, she majors in biochemistry and mathematics. She was also a visiting student at Oxford. A Wells Scholar, Presidential Intern and Senator Richard Lugar Scholar, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, she is president of the IU Minority Association of Pre-Medical Students. She has won several awards for her research in organic chemistry, and has participated in a U.S.-Russia global health care study program and done research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Esther plans to do the D.Phil. in chemistry at Oxford.

(Photo courtesy of Indiana University Bloomington)

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Dr. Mercy Obeime Profiled in The Indianapolis Star

Health reporter Shari Rudavsky has penned an update on Mercy Obeime in today's Indianapolis Star. Dr. Obeime, a native of Uromi, Nigeria, works at the St. Francis Neighborhood Health Center in the Garfield Park neighborhood of Indianapolis as a family practitioner.

She also makes trips to Nigeria to help the ill there. Her charitable organization, the Mercy Foundation, merged with Indianapolis-based Timmy Foundation recently.

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Osili Named Director of Research at Center on Philanthropy

Dr. Una Okonkwo Osili (pictured) has been named director of research for the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis.

Osili has served as interim director of research at the Center since October 2008. She will develop new research initiatives, convene scholars and nonprofit professionals nationally and internationally, direct the Center’s research department, and serve as lead researcher on several research projects.

An associate professor of economics and Philanthropic Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Osili has served as a consultant for the United Nations Development Program, the United Economics Commission for Africa and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Osili also served on the International Scientific Panel for the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa/MacArthur Foundation Real Economies of Africa program and as a member of the Expert Advisory Panel for the Economic Report on Africa published by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

Dr. Osili's recent studies have centered on how cultural diversity affects philanthropy in the United States, using data from the Center on Philanthropy Panel Study to look at charitable behavior of immigrants.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in economics with honors from Harvard University and a master of arts and a Ph.D. in economics from Northwestern University. The daughter of an American mother and a Nigerian father, she lived in Nigeria until she was 15 years old. She is the wife of architect Vop Osili, who recently announced his candidacy for Indiana Secretary of State.

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2009 Evening with The Mercy Foundation

The sixth annual "Evening with the Mercy Foundation" benefits health missions in the United States and Nigeria. It'll be held from 5:30 to 10 p.m. 28 August in Conseco Fieldhouse, 125 South Pennsylvania Street, Indianapolis.

Founder and CEO of Mercy Foundation is Dr. Mercy Obeime, a native of Nigeria, who is medical director of the Saint Francis Neighborhood Health Center at Garfield Park, Indianapolis.

Tickets are $50 per person ($200 for patrons); cocktail or African attire recommended. The event is sponsored by St. Francis Hospital, Marion County Health Department, WISH-TV, Clarian Health, DSC Dermatology, Advantage Health, Indiana Minority Health Coalition and Pacers Sports and Entertainment. Jim Morris, Pacers President, is honorary chair.

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African Children's Choir to Sing in Greenfield

The African Children's Choir will sing at 9 and 10:45 a.m. 19 July in Brandywine Community Church, 1551 East New Road, Greenfield. Admission is free, but donations will be accepted.

The choir has established schools in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan and Uganda.

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Valpo Visits Nigeria

Two Valparaiso University academic administrators will travel to Africa next week, reports Inside INdiana Business.

During their 12 day stay, they'll meet with Nigeria's first lady and a number of education and government officials. The goal of the trip is to explore opportunities to build connections between Valparaiso and the African nation.

Endangered Species Chocolate Heads to Africa

According to Inside INdiana Business, Indianapolis-based Endangered Species Chocolate will travel to the Ivory Coast and Nigeria next month to continue the company’s mission to produce ethically traded chocolate bars and help support humanitarian efforts.

Officials will visit cacao farms in two Ivory Coast communities and join Indianapolis-based Mercy Foundation on a medical mission in Uromi, Nigeria.

Nigerian Author to Speak at Butler University

Chris Abani (pictured), will speak about his writing at 7:30 p.m. 9 April 2008 in the Reilly Room of Atherton Union at Butler University. Abani, from Nigeria, wrote his first novel at 16. Two years later he was imprisoned on the grounds that this work had served as a blueprint for the failed coup of General Vatsa. His experiences as a political prisoner and of civil war in his homeland under Abacha's rule are articulated in a highly personal and explicit way in his work and in his speaking. His prose includes Song For Night (2007), The Virgin of Flames (2007) and Becoming Abigail (2006). He is a professor at the University of California, Riverside. Abani's presentation is part of the Spring 2008 Vivian S. Delbrook Visiting Writers Series at Butler. All events are free and open to the public; no tickets are required. For more information, call 317:940-9861.

Mercy for Nigeria

"An Evening with the Mercy Foundation" is set for 21 July in the Indiana Historical Society, 450 West Ohio Street, Indianapolis.

Proceeds benefit the Mercy Foundation, started by Dr. Mercy Obeime (medical director of St. Francis Neighborhood Health Center) to increase awareness about HIV/AIDS and obesity in Nigeria.

The foundation sponsored a medical mission to Auchi, Nigeria, last May and plans trips to Uromi, Edo State, Nigeria 16-26 August and to Afikpo, Nigeria, in November.

Better crop storage method for Africa

A Purdue University team will help residents of 10 African countries increase their supply of cowpeas thanks to an $11.4 million Gates Foundation grant to Purdue Agriculture.

The five-year project on crop storage will cover the countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo.

Purdue University entomologist Larry Murdock (at left - with bagged cowpeas!) discovered that cowpea weevils can be controlled if the crop is properly stored. With a one-time cost estimated at a little more than $3 per household, farmers in West and Central Africa will learn how to better protect cowpeas, an important food and cash crop.

Cowpeas, better known in America as black-eyed peas, are marketed by an estimated 3.4 million households in those countries. Even though cowpea yields are low, the legume is one of the few grain crops that can be profitably exported by farmers in this dry, resource-poor part of Africa.

Proven effective in pilot projects, the Purdue-developed hermetic storage method involves triple bagging the cowpeas in plastic and sealing them tight. Not only is the process low-cost - basically the cost of the plastic bags - it's also safer than current practices of either no protection or treating cowpeas with insecticides.

Purdue will work with partners in Africa to recruit and train technicians who will travel from village to village to demonstrate this method for cowpea storage. In addition, the Purdue team will work with manufacturers and suppliers in the region to ensure that appropriate plastic bags are available.

The cowpea is a key crop prioritized in the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa's (AGRA) Program for Africa's Seed Systems (PASS), an effort to improve the availability and variety of seeds that can produce higher yields in the often harsh conditions of sub-Saharan Africa.

AGRA is an African-led response to broad calls in Africa for a partnership working across the continent to help millions of small-scale farmers and their families lift themselves out of poverty and hunger. Alliance partnerships focus on key aspects of African agriculture: from seeds, soil health and water to markets, agricultural education and policy.

AGRA is based in Nairobi and supported by the Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.

AIDS Testing in Nigeria

Purdue University reports that its researchers will meet with Nigerian officials and health-care professionals this month to introduce a new low-cost technology that would make it possible to perform affordable, widespread medical testing for millions of AIDS victims in Africa.

The effort to manufacture the low-cost instruments is called the Cytometry for Life program. Discovery Park's Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering has joined Bindley researchers as a project partner.

J. Paul Robinson (pictured), a professor in Purdue's schools of biomedical engineering and veterinary medicine, will travel to Nigeria on 12 March with Hildred Sarah Rochon, research coordinator of the Cytometry for Life program, and Gilbert Rochon, Purdue's associate vice president for collaborative research.

They will meet with several leaders, health-care officials and philanthropists, including the governor and deputy governor of Lagos, Nigeria's most populous city; health-care professionals at the National Hospital in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria; traditional rulers in Imo State in southern Nigeria, where the Cytometry for Life Program has an office; and health-care workers and officials in the city of Owerri, the capital of Imo State. The meetings and visits are being coordinated by Prince Ikenna Nwaturuocha of the Royal Kingdom of Aboah-Mbasie in Imo State.

Read more about the initiative here.

Cummins partners with A.G.Leventis in Nigeria

According to Inside Indiana Business, Columbus-based Cummins, Inc., has signed a joint venture deal to create a new company in West Africa.

The partnership with Nigerian company A.G. Leventis will manufacture power generators.

The company says Cummins West Africa will continue to build on its strategy to enter emerging markets at an early stage. Cummins says this follows the establishment of recent operations in China and India, according to Inside Indiana Business.