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Geneva Residents Attend
Support
Dinner for Eritrean Refugee
Children
At Wad-Sherifey Elementary
School in Sudan
By
Nharnet Stringer (Europe)
The Geneva-based young humanitarian
non-profit, non-political Swiss Association for Eritrean Children or
ASEE (Association Suisse Enfance-Erythree) on Saturday, 2 June 2007,
organized a support dinner party whose proceeds shall help the education
of about 600 Eritrean refugee children at Wad-Sherifey near Kassala in
Sudan.
Attended by a good number of Geneva
residents, the well-organized dinner party served Eritrean, Swiss, Sri
Lankan and other foods prepared by the residents of Plan- les-Ouates
(read: Plan-les-Wat), a section of Geneva that has committed itself to
help ASEE and, through it, the Eritrean refugee children at Wad-Sherifey.
The events of the party started with
a show of two documentaries. One was a general presentation of the story
of the refugee school that was established over two decades ago. The
second documentary narrated the purpose of the March 2007 visit of two
founder-leaders of ASEE to meet with the school administration and make
on-the-spot assessment of the priority needs of the school.
Groups of charities and families in
the Commune of Plan-les-Ouates helped to organize various shows,
entertainments, musical bands accompanied by young singers, many of them
quite well known to the public. One of the songs was adapted to mention
Eritrea and Eritreans by name and our people’s plight at this moment in
time. Swiss children also read poetry about refugee children and
children of poor families in the world, with particular mention of
Eritrean children at Wad-Sherifey and other places who they said
“merited everyone’s sympathy and support because of the long-drawn
conflicts in their country”.
Ms Ogba Tekle, the ASEE treasurer and
one of the key organizers of the support dinner at the Community Hall of
Plan-les-Ouates, expressed her full satisfaction with the event which
she described was “a big public relations occasion in introducing to the
Geneva public the humanitarian objectives of ASEE and its determination
to support and maintain the Eritrean refugee school at Wad-Sherifey “.
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