Well in Sierra Leone Funded by IUPUI Students

It began two years ago when the first dollar was dropped into a glass jar, reports the news bureau at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis. It will end in September 2010 when a notice is attached to a new well to be dug in a village in Sierra Leone, thanking members of the Psychology Club and Psi Chi, the international honors society in Psychology, at IUPUI for providing the villagers with clean drinking water.

The psychology students raised $4041 toward the $4,850 cost of the well, starting in 2008. The first $100 was donated at a presentation arranged by the Psychology Club and Psi Chi by a member of the Fisher’s Rotary Club, describing that club’s efforts to raise money for wells in Africa through Water is Life, a project connected to World Hope International.

The students then obtained Water is Life t-shirts, bracelets, bumper stickers and candles to sell, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the cost of the well.

Africa Water is Life, an initiative that was launched to empower young people to help people in Africa, will contribute the remaining $809 for the well so it can be drilled this fall.

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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!

Former Child Soldier from Sierra Leone to Speak

Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier and author from Sierra Leone will speak on ""A Long Way Gone: A Story of Redemption and Hope" at 7:30 p.m. 26 January 2009 in Clowes Memorial Hall on the campus of Butler University in Indianapolis.

His presentation is part of Butler's 21st annual Celebration of Diversity Distinguished Lecture Series.

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.

Samuel Pieh to Speak at University of Indianapolis

Samuel Pieh (left), a alumnus of the University of Indianapolis who served as a dialect coach and played a small role in the Steven Spielberg movie based on the 1839 incident when slaves on board a Spanish schooner off the coast of North America rebelled, will discuss "The Amistad: Timeless Values in the Footprints of History" during a program beginning at noon 21 January. Pieh is a descendant of Sengbe Pieh (also known as Joseph Cinqué) whose actions led his fellow captives to freedom in a landmark case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Open to the public, the free event will be in UIndy’s Ransburg Auditorium, 1400 East Hanna Avenue, Indianapolis. The program also will include music by the university’s "Voices of Worship" gospel choir. A reception follows in the Schwitzer Student Center atrium. Pieh, who graduated from UIndy in 1972 with a bachelor’s degree in biology, is the executive director of the Christian Health Association of Sierra Leone.