Teaching photography
During a frantic two-day stretch last spring, Nancy Borowick ’07 got several immunization shots and drug prescriptions to protect against diseases like typhoid, meningitis and yellow fever during a two-month volunteer trip to Ghana.
The immunization push is chronicled in one of the first entries in Borowick’s trip diary. Today she is trying to script the last entry: raising money to help the village of Mowire build a well that produces safe drinking water.
Borowick’s volunteer trip, organized with help from Kids Worldwide, began in late March and ended in late May. Borowick, an organizing theme major at Union, taught photography to a grade-school class of 15 girls and boys in a rural village located in central Ghana.
“I taught photography to children in a culture where confidence and individualism are frowned upon. I wanted to give these kids a chance to express themselves in a way never allowed,” Borowick said.
Ghana, which is about the size of Oregon, is located on the west coast of Africa and has a population of about 23.3 million. Roughly 55 percent of the nation’s labor force works in agriculture, with major exports including cocoa, rice and bananas.
At Union, Borowick spent a term abroad in Barbados and completed a senior project on the growing Guyanese population in Schenectady. The term abroad and Guyanese project were, like the Ghana trip, attempts to submerse herself in a different culture and emerge with a meaningful story, Borowick said. That was the essential element of her organizing theme major, which was focused on representations of culture and identity and incorporated coursework in anthropology, visual arts and modern languages.
“After finding success teaching photography to children during my term abroad to Barbados in 2006, I decided to try it again in Ghana. The majority of the children at the Triumph International School had never been near a camera before, let alone been able to touch and hold one,” Borowick said.
Borowick today lives in Manhattan and works part- time at a photography studio as she pursues a career in photography. She is raising money and, with help from Kids Worldwide, hoping to funnel donations toward a new village well. The current well is dry and villagers must walk two miles for potable water.
For more: Contact Nancy Borowick at nancyborowick@gmail.com. She recently held a photography exhibit and a fundraiser at Home Sweet Home, a bar and lounge in New York City co-owned by Nadia Koch ’06. To see more of her work, visit www.nancyborowick.com.
Aiding Ethiopia’s orphans
Amelie was elated. Her parents, Danielle Marquis ’01 and Bryan Cudmore ’99, had just completed a wooden playground in the family’s yard and set her free to play.
Amelie, now 2, was adopted in April 2007 from the Toukoul orphanage in the Ethiopian city of Addis Ababa. When the couple traveled there to finalize the adoption, they were struck by the needs of the children. So, when Amelie’s playground was completed a few months later at their home in Colorado, Marquis thought of the orphanage.
“‘Oh my God, there was no playground,’ I said. We felt really guilty. These kids have nothing. We decided at that point that we should start to help,” Marquis said. “I knew I wanted to do something. When we showed up at the orphanage, all the kids knew why they we were there. We felt awful. It just breaks your heart. You can’t adopt them all, yet you want to do something to help those left behind.”
With help from a cadre of other mothers who adopted Ethiopian children, Marquis formed Ethiopian Orphan Relief, Inc. The nonprofit seeks to improve the lives of Ethiopia’s orphans by selecting specific and attainable goals. Ethiopia, located near the upper east coast of Africa, has a population of more than 78 million and has recently battled widespread malnutrition and high rates of HIV infection.
While waiting to finalize Amelie’s adoption, Marquis and Cudmore rallied family and friends to raise $5,000 for a care center for HIV-positive children at Amelie’s orphanage. The center will open later this year and will house one of Ethiopian Orphan Relief, Inc.’s first formal projects: a playground.
Marquis’ next goal is to raise money to aid construction of a facility in Addis Ababa for orphaned teenage girls. That project is being led by another nonprofit, Children’s Heaven, which supports girls whose parents die of complications related to AIDS. Orphaned teenage girls are a vulnerable segment of Ethiopian society, because they are at a higher risk of sexual assault or rape, and thereby more susceptible to acquiring HIV, Marquis said.
“It’s a boatload of work. We’ve got some talented moms on our team, we’re really lucky. In fact, I am leaving for Portland, Ore. today for a board meeting with other moms of Ethiopian orphans. Most of our children lived at Toukoul, many shared cribs. It’s just something we’ve always wanted to do,” Marquis said in mid-August.
For the past seven years Marquis, who earned a law degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder, has run Marquis Athletes, a sports-management firm that matches former athletes who are motivational speakers with corporate, non- profit and educational engagements. Husband Bryan Cudmore is a sales representative for Abbott, a large healthcare company that makes prescription drugs, medical products and nutritional products. The family, including son, Brayson, born in May, lives in Evergreen, Colo.
Marquis, whose father was adopted and always considered adopting, credits a Union term abroad in Athens with further influencing her decision. During the term, Marquis saw poor families begging for food near a student dining hall.
“I vividly remember walking out of our dining hall in a fancy area of Athens. We’d walk out and there were always moms with babies, and some of the kids appeared to be injured. They were begging for food,” Marquis said.
For more: Visit www.ethiopianorphanrelief.org to learn more or to contact Danielle Marquis. Join Ethiopian Orphan Relief, Inc. on Nov. 8, 2008 at Flash Studio near Denver for an Ethiopian art show, sale and fundraiser to benefit the Children’s Heaven project.
Raising their voices
An October 2007 New York Times story inspired a group of women in the New York City metropolitan area to act. Today that group, including Elissa Hecker ’95, has raised nearly $200,000 and garnered international attention to aid victims of a brutal rape epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The story’s lead sentence reflects the disgust of a Congolese gynecologist who was last year performing as many as six rape-related surgeries a day. Reporter Jeffrey Gettleman describes unimaginably violent rapes carried out by armed groups of men, largely formed in the wake of a deadly civil war, that roam lawless regions of the country. Although a peace agreement was signed in 2003 after five years of civil war, violent militias persist and are made worse by widespread malnutrition, disease and political unrest.
“Many of us read the Times story. One friend in particular wanted to do something to help the victims of the atrocious crimes. So she called Jeffrey Gettleman and he put her in touch with various people who are involved with the issues in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Hecker said.
In the last year, Hecker and her volunteer colleagues formed a nonprofit group called Women of the Congo. In addition to raising money, the group participated in a U.N. briefing and attended a session of the U.N.’s General Assembly. The roundtable briefing dealt with causes of the rape epidemic, ways to help the victims and avenues for justice. Experts at the briefing said 40,000 women reported being raped in 2007 in the Congo, which is just less than a quarter of the size of the United States and has a population of about 67 million.
So, for Hecker and her volunteer colleagues in Women of the Congo, the stated inspiration is simple: “We believe that we can no longer turn away in horror, but must raise our voices in defense of these women who struggle daily to protect themselves and their children from unspeakable atrocities.”
The money raised will be donated to playwright Eve Ensler’s organization V-Day, a global movement to stop violence against women and girls. V-Day will aid UNICEF’s City of Joy, near Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, which will be a safe house for survivors of sexual violence who cannot return to their families. A donation will also be made to Avocats Sans Frontières, an international nongovernmental organization of lawyers and legal professionals that protects the rights of vulnerable groups and individuals. The Women of the Congo group will be featured in the October issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. The group was featured in several local print and radio news pieces.
Hecker is the principal of her own law firm, which focuses primarily on copyright, trademark and business law. She is also on the Editorial Board of the New York State Bar Association’s Journal and the editor of the bar association’s Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Journal and is editor of the book Entertainment Litigation, Know the Issues and Avoid the Courtroom. Hecker also regularly organizes and participates in pro bono causes.
Hecker and several of her friends, including Laura Grund ’96, are sponsoring women through Women for Women International, an organization that helps individual Congolese women survive and thrive.
At Union, Hecker was active in student government and was a part of several student volunteer groups.
“Union helped make me realize just how fortunate I was to be able to experience an excellent education in a beautiful environment. It made me want to give back even more to the community, and to help others who may not have had my opportunities,” she said.
For more: Visit www.womenofthecongo.com or contact Elissa Hecker at eheckeresq@yahoo.com.