Wednesday, November 19, 2003
AIDS benefit concert to feature Tony Brown at Goshen College Dec. 1
GOSHEN, Ind. -- Five people worldwide die of AIDS every minute. Goshen College students have taken the initiative to organize an AIDS benefit concert, "Make Them Hear You," on World AIDS Day, to help with the fight on AIDS.The concert, featuring guest baritone and 1971 Goshen College alum Tony Brown, will be held Monday, Dec. 1 at 7 p.m. in Goshen College Umble Center to raise money for African women with AIDS/HIV. In addition to Brown, students will be performing music, dance and offering readings, and there will be a silent art auction in the lobby during the concert with art donated by local artists.
The idea for such an event developed out of Associate Professor of Communication Pat McFarlane's Communicating Across Cultures class. As part of the class, all students participate in a service learning project and some of the women in the class decided to correspond via e-mail with Tanzanian Mennonite women who are HIV-positive and in a weekly support group, through a Mennonite Women USA Sister-Link project. Campus Ministries has joined the women of the Sister-Link project to help make this concert possible.
In corresponding, the students are telling about themselves and the Tanzanian women are able to share their stories and help educate the students about the realities of living with the AIDS epidemic.
Sister-Link projects aim to build relationships between North American women and women around the world in which all participants are both givers and receivers. Mennonite Women USA works with organizations including Mennonite Central Committee and Mennonite Mission Network to identify opportunities for U.S. women and women's groups to link with other women.
In learning about the women, the students decided to send materials to help the women make memory books to preserve their life stories. They also wanted to raise money to send through the Mennonite Central Committee's AIDS ministry for the women's healthcare supplies, food and Bibles. Food and medical supplies for two years for 100 Tanzanian women living with AIDS costs $2,156.
Organizer of the concert and a member of the class, Esther Fordham (Fr., Goshen, Ind.), said, "This is a cause that I am passionate about because it relates directly to Sister-Link. By doing this fundraiser we are offering students and the community a way to tangibly affect the lives of women with AIDS in Africa."
Brown is well established as a performer of opera, oratorio, art song, contemporary works and spirituals. He is artist-in-residence at Hesston (Kan.) College, as well as a member of the teaching faculty.
Tickets are available for $20 at the Goshen College Welcome Center (574-535-7566).
The concert is also sponsored by Mennonite Central Committee, the Elkhart County Health Department and the Red Cross.
Goshen College,
established in 1894, is a four-year residential Christian liberal
arts college rooted in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition. The
college's Christ-centered core values -- passionate learning,
global citizenship, compassionate peacemaking and
servant-leadership -- prepare students as leaders for the church
and world. Recognized for its unique Study-Service Term program,
Goshen has earned citations of excellence in Barron's Best Buys
in Education, Kaplan's "Most
Interesting Colleges" guide and U.S.News & World
Report's "America's Best
Colleges" edition, which named Goshen a "least debt college." Visit
www.goshen.edu.
Editors: For more information, contact Jodi
H. Beyeler at (574) 535-7572 or jodihb@goshen.edu.
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