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Eritrean children "SUN SHINES ON THEIR FUTURE" This was the motto of Dr. Joyce Blueford when she
presented her project briefly at the Event titled "Silicon
Valley Leaders Come Together in Support of Math/Science Nucleus' NetAfrica Eritrea Science Project." The event
celebration/fund raising was held at the Fair child
auditorium at Stanford University on Dec 8, 2001. I was
hesitant to go at first, but it was worth every minute of it.
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On two corners of the hall there were the traditional
Eritrean coffee roasting (bun meglaw). Two beautiful
Eritrean woman, dressed in traditional Zuriya, roasted
coffee and served it to the guests of the event. The aroma
of the coffee roasting filled the place. Some of the guests
were familiar with tradition. One of the Guests, Dr. Mary
Lake Polan, a physician at Stanford University, who had
visited Eritrea, had the pictures that she took displayed on
the walls on the reception area. There were young Eritreans, professional and distinguished guests.
Around 6:30pm Mr. Teclu Tesfazghi opened the evening by
the traditional opening of ZIKRE SEMAETAT," -Remembering
the martyrs of Eritrea, He introduced as a first speaker a
young Eritrean by the name Ruth Negash. Graduated with
BS from UCDavis in Physiology and went to serve in a
peace corp in Jordan. Ruth is back now in the bay area
teaching 7th grade in Alum Rock District. She was also the
coordinator of the cultural event of the evening. She
introduced the young Eritreans dressed in the traditional
cloths and dancing to the tunes of Tigrigna, Tigra and Saho. After each dance the Organizer, Ruth, Gave a brief
description of the tribe and history behind it. Later on, she
presented the nine tribes in a fashion show during the
dinner.
The elements that surprised me in the evening was how
much the peace corp was part of the coordinators and
guest. Either they were members of the corps or were
influenced by a corp member. It was mentioned several
times during the evening gala. As the evening went along,
a young man, by the name of Milan Selassie, introduced
the senator Tom Campbell, Milan is an eloquent speaker.
He is a financial consultant for Solomon Smith Barney, a
member of Citicorp. Milan talked about his life briefly. He is
a Duke Graduate and was a member of the campaign mgrs
for Tom Campbell. Milan introduced the Senator as
kind,honest,compassionate and dedicated to any cause
that he takes. In one part of his introduction he used an
expression "how can you introduce your brother to your
parents." Prof. Campbell, a law Prof at Stanford university,
gave a brief story on how he got involved with Eritrea. He
was a member of the US house rep on African
subcommittee. He volunteered to be a member. Tom
Campbell stated, " most of my colleagues were drawn by
duty to Paris and so on, but I thought I would do good if I
specialized in an area few Congressman will be spending
time on" he went on to say "If America devoted a little bit
of time and little bit of its resources to work with people
who are here to work for themselves, imagine the good we
would do and just ask, hypothetically, suppose that would
have been our foreign policy do you think we will be in
state we are right now in the world". Senator Campbell
was able to give a certain information that he obtained
from the his friends in congress regarding the situation in
Eritrea. One of the things he mentioned was, he was on a
"fact finding" mission in 21 countries in Africa. Out of all this
countries he chose Eritrea. in law and economics. Actually,
Mr. Campbell and his wife will be traveling to Eritrea this
week to teach in Asmara University for the next 4 weeks.
Susan, the Senator's wife, will be teaching university
administration and fund raising while the Prof will be
teaching law and economics. It may not be a lot of time,
but the effort put by the congressman is commendable. As
he put it, this time is special why is it special because the
people of Eritrea are special. At the end of his speech he
said he had thanksgiving 1997 in Eritrea he will have
Christmas 2001 in Eritrea and continue to go back to
Eritrea, which he is proud to call, second home.
Dr. Mary Lake Polan spoke briefly. Dr. Polan visited Eritrea
and looked at the health care issue for woman. Right now
Dr. Polan has designed a project and recruited three of her
colleagues and manage to get a funding. She will be going
Eritrea to work in woman's health care to improve the
maternal outcomes with baby's outcome.
The last person to speak was Dr. Joyce Blueford. The
founder and the president of the Math Science Nucleus http://www.msnucleus.org. My Blueford made a brief
demonstration of the software used to teach children using
computers in math and science. Dr. Joyce talked about how
it is difficult to use computers in Eritrea's due to the fact
that Eritrea uses 220 volts system. While in The US we use
110 V. The electrical system in Eritrea could be unstable/the
weather in a certain area can be unfriendly to the
computers. Those are some of the difficulties they
encounter unless an effort is put into finding a solution.
Dr. Blueford talked about the expertise needed on how to
use and network the computers those are available in
Eritrea. She mentioned that the Danish is donating 5
million/year for five years for the infrastructure. But the
training will come from Math Science Nucleus. Math Science Nucleus is nonprofit
Organization which aims into exposing student at a young
age to the unlimited resources of the technology. As Craig
stated, Dr. Joyce made a career developing curricula in
teaching math and science to young students. The science
curricula is being used to introduce the teacher-training
institute in Eritrea, to help improve math and science
education's. The program depends generally on the
volunteers.