2A
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NEWS/(Cit C^rtottt $«t
Thursday, January 5, 2006
Afro Center moves ahead with vision
Continued from page 1A
ter’fl Board of Directors, ccm-
tinue to serve - effectively —
as interim directs?
lie, alctfig with others in the
Charlotte community, say
abedutely
“Well, certainly, it’s not
something we want to do
Usig-term,” Taylcs' said. “The
grxxl news is the (AACC; staff
has rf'ally dcsie a great job, so
I think the amount of time
tliat I liave to spend on staff
operations is (limited). I
mean, the staff really does it.
People like (aanmunity cul-
tiu'al programs director)
Vickii (Graham, people like
Gloria Duncan make a differ
ence. These people have real
ly done great woik. So it real
ly does kind of mediate the
hands-on, day-to-day tasks
forme.
“Right now, I can be more of
a visionary rede, in terms of
helping execute on key things
that the center can continue
to grow from.”
Tb outsiders, it would
appear that an abundance of
growth is needed at the Afro
Center. Of late, the center’s
most pressing issues have
been hij^y publicized;
• Neariy six months after
the board of directOTs voted to
replace Beveriy Cureton .as
executive director, a replace
ment hasn't beai choeen.
• There are concerns about
whether the center can
attract the corporate and
community funds necessary
to maintain and expand pro
gramming.
• And it’s still imcertain
whether the center has the
backing - frnandal and other
wise — to land a new $17.9
million building, which would
be vital in drawing more
annual visifras.
Moving forward
Because of the support sys
tem in place with the center’s
staff and his peers on the
board, Tajior said things have
been going well for the AACC
lately even without a perma
nent executive director.
A recent victory for the cen
ter was a Dec. 15 fund raiser
hosted at the home of
Charlotte attorney Johnny
Tajdor, which generated a
much-needed $32,000.
“We set a goal for $25,000,”
Egypt apologizes for Sudan deaths
Continued from page 1A
encounter repeatedly playing on television
news channels around the worid, a spokesman
for President Hosni Mubarak expressed the
coiuitrys “sorrow and pain for all the victims.’
But Suliemnn Awad also rejected criticism
from the U N. High Commissioner for
R>iiigee8, saying police had evicted the protest
ers at the agency’s request.
Tlie migrants had occupied the park since
Sept. 29 to demand that officials in the nearby
UNHCR offices declare them eligible for reset
tlement in a third country Egypt’s Interior
Ministry said the agency asked for protection
l)ecause it had received threats.
On Friday, High Commissioner Antonio
Guterres condemned the bloodshed from his
Geneva office, saying “there is no justification
for such violence and loss of life."
Awad said authorities ended the protest “in
response to three written requests fiom the
UNHCR office in Cairo."
‘'Ihe UNHCR is fully aware of how much
lielp Egypt has given in this situation and how
much patience it has shown,* he said
The UNHCR stopped hearing the cases of
Sudanese seeking refugee status after a
January peace deal ended a civil war in the
soutli of their homeland
Criticism moiuited in Egypt and abroad as a
small group of protesters gathered at the paik,
ciianting “down with Mubarak" and “humanity
was killed liere.’
“The police acted with extreme brutality," said
New York-based Human Rights Watch “The
blood is still on the sidewalks, and already the
government is blaming the Sudanese refugees
and migrants."
The Egyptian Organization for Human
Ri^ts condemned “the ui\justified violence.”
Estimates on the number of dead varied
Security officials, speaking on condition of
anonymity because they were not authorized to
talk with the media, said the toll rose to 25
when several protesters succumbed to their
iiyuries The Interior Ministry, however, stuck
to a statement that only 12 Sudanese died and
74 police were iiyured blaming the protesters
for provoking the violence.
Protest leader Boutrous Deng said 26
Sudanese were killed including two women
and seven children. Egyptian Dr. Aida
Saifaldawlah, who had treated the Sudanese
during the protest, said 30 people died and 60
were wounded.
She said 2500 Sudanese were taken to camps
run by security forces.
Not everyone sympathized with the
Sudanese. The Cairo dly government had been
under heavy pressure fiom residents in the
well-todo neighborhood to dose the camp.
‘Took at this place. It’s like a garbage dump,"
said Khaled Mohammed, a Cairo policeman
who had been assigned to guard the protest
camp. “They brou^t diseases and a bad repu
tation to this district ”
Kenyan inmates skip New Year’s
lunch to support drought victims
By Rodrique Ngowi
int:ASS(x'iAm) pRtxs
NAIROBI, Kenya
Thousands of prisoners
skipped their aimual New
Year’s limch Sunday and
instead sent the food to hun
dreds of thousands of
Kenyans affected by food
shortages, a senior prison offi-
dal said.
Most of Kenya’s estimated
50,000 prisoners gave up
tlieir ration of beans and stiff
jwiridge made fit)m com on
the day that President Mwai
Kibaki declared the food
shortages a naticoial disaster
in a bid to speed up relief
effcHts
“In the next six months, up
to 2.5 million of our pecple
will be in need of famine
relief This represents close to
10 percent of the country’s
population," Kibaki said dur
ing new year celebiTitions. ‘Tb
ejisure that we have adequate
interventions on the ground, I
am declaring the famine a
national disaster.’
Prisoners wanted to help
after watching images of
starving Kenyans on TV,
reading about food shortages
in newspapers and discussing
the situation with visiting rel
atives and among themselves,
said Jehn Isaac Odongo, the
commandant of Kenya’s
prison staff training college.
People detained in Kenya’s
93 prisons “move about when
they are taken to court and
this is how the ideal of skip)-
ping a meal was spread,”
Odongo told The Associated
Press.
“As human beings, they also
feel like other Kenyans ...
They asked themselves can
they forgo one meal in a life
time for the sake of other
Kenyans? The answer was
that wiU not even affect their
health,* Odongo said.
French moving to end
forced marriages
By Julio Gtxioy
INI IJtNAllONAl. PRISS SFJt\ ICE
PARIS - Fatia was in love, but mmths earlier she had been
fitted into marriage with another man.
“A\hen my nK)ther realized I did not want to marry the man
she had chosen for me. she warned me, ‘Either you marry him,
OF you are not my daughter any more’,’ Fatia, 23, said T went
to the town hall to my marriage as if I was going to my own exe-
aition. but nobodycared there about my feelings. Ijust got mar
ried to a man I had hardly met - and whom I did not love.”
In tinte she came to love scmieone else.
T thou^t I was going mad* she said T was failing in love
with this wcTKleriul guy, and at home I had to go to bed with
another man, wheon I feared and with whom I did not have
anything to do. least of all any intimate life. It was terriUe *
TTus conflict continued for several months, until Fatia’s moth
er agreed to do her bit now to help end the marriage She s]x>ke
to Fatia’s husband and after a Icng dis|kite he accep)ted disseJu-
ticHf of the marriage.
Tbday, Fatia shares her life with the man she loves. Not a per-
fret p>artnership. but at least this is what she wanted Tt is my
life. whate\^ mistakes I ccaumit, I have to come to terms with
them,” she said
Fatia is not alone
Initial estimates show that
Kenya needs about 11 billion
shillings (US $153 million) to
pjTOvide emergency food to vic
tims of drought. More money
is needed to provide water to
people and animals, educa
tion, health care, seeds to
farmers in preparation for the
next crop season and restock
ing livestock, Kibaki said.
Officials are trying to deter
mine how much money would
be saved in the prisons,
Odengo said
([Convicts at the Naivasha
Maximum Security Prison
said the food shortages also
affect their relatives.
“Those suffering out there
are our brothers and sisters
and we need them once we get
out of this pjlace,* said One
James Kamutu, who was sen
tenced to death
Drou^t has also tri^ered
food shortages in neighboring
Ethiopia and Somalia, a coun
try that has had no effective
government since warlords
overthrew dictator Mohamed
Siad Barre in 1994.
More than 1 million
Ethiopian cattle herders face
extreme food shortages after
the failure of rains that nor
mally replenish water sources
and sustain livestock throu^
the dry season.
In anarchic Somalia, where
about 2 million p)eople need
humanitarian aid, drought
has affected its southern
region, leading to increases in
admissions of severely mal
nourished children to thera
peutic feeding centers there.
Associated Press reporter
Ahihony Gitonga in Naivasha,
Kenya, contributed to this report.
David Tajdor said proudly,
“and we raised $32,(X)0 —and
growing. We’ve stiB got
checks coming in. Those peo
ple wrote $500 checks 10 days
before Christmas, which is
unheard of”
That, he said, is something
that should help quell any
notions about the AACCs
lack of ability to generate
funds fix)m corporate and
community entities.
T think the community and
the individual and corporate
have historically been very
supjportive of the center, and
continue to be supp)ortive,”
Tajdor said T think our chal
lenge at the center has been
that we go out and inform
them of our needs and make
requests. But I have yet to
find that either of those enti
ties have demonstrated that
they have no interests. Tve
seen quite the contrary - that
there’s a great passion for the
c^ter, a great willingness for
the center to succeed And
they’ve demonstrated that.
“What was really encourag
ing (about the December fund
raiser) was that it was a
whole different set of p)eople
(involved). It wasn’t the regu
lar people that always come to
the center’s rescue, the people
you can always count on for a
check. This was new money
by and laige. Board member
DeAlva Glenn took this vision
and pulled this together,
working with Johnny That’s
the kind of leadership that
we’re getting fixmi the board
that people don’t know about
necessarily. And we’ve
already got a couple other
ones scheduled that we hope
will be similariy successful.”
Necessary asset
John Mnter, who has been
M inter
involved vsdth the Afit) (Center
as a patron over the years,
said he isn’t worried about
whether it ultimately can
thrive. The center, Minter
said is too much of a commu
nity pillar to fail.
Tt’s obviously a pjrocess that
would work a lot better if it
had (a permanent) executive
director to oig^anize and focus
a portion of it,
but the
Cultural
Center itself
has always
had a sp)ecial
relationship
with the com-
m u n i t y, ”
Minter said
“So even with
out an executive director,
there’s enough passion in the
community to give it the kind
of support it needs to be suc
cessful, to help get the new
building. People will come
through and make donaticais
because of what the Cultural
(Denter means to the black
community”
Hence, Tajior said, the cen
ter’s visions are very ambi
tious. And realistic.
For starters, 'Tajior and the
center have set a fund-raising
goal of $250,000 by the end of
the fiscal year. As a matter of
fact, he said, the center is “hit
ting and exceeding” its bud
get, which means the new
executive director won’t come
in with the AACC in financial
straits.
Tajior said the Board of
Directors has “two to three
candidates, quite frankly, that
we like, and we’re having sev
eral conversations with
them.” But he would not give
an indication of how soon a
successor would be named
It doesn’t matter, though, he
said, because the center’s
overall visictti will not change.
“The ultimate vision is that
the Afix)-American CXiltural
Center become the pM'emiere
arts center in the region,”
Tkjior said “One, because of
the variety of things we do.
When you really think about,
we not only can have local
impact; we really should have
regional and state impact as
well.
“When you even think
about the great city of Atlanta
— Atlanta won’t have what
Charlotte has in the Afix>-
American Cultural Center.
This place would really tell
our story in different £isp)ects.
We want to change p)eople’s
lives - how they think, how
they view Afiican-Americans.
And we’re excited about that.”
Such vision is what makes
Tajior the ideal p)erson to run
the AACC at such a critical
moment, Minter said
‘T think he is the kind of p)er-
son with the respect and
integrity in the community
who win attract the siQ)p)ort
the Cultural d^ter needs,”
Minter said ‘Tou need a (p)er-
manent) director, but, more
impxjrtantly, you need the
ri^t direction.
“The community has always
wanted more fium the center
than it could give. But I think
Mr. Taylor is the kind of p)er-
son who has the integrity to
actually fulfill everything the
community needs. I know it’s
v^y difficult for him to do
both jobs right now. It’s not
going to be easy But he’s been
very successful in business,
and I know he can be success
ful leading the Cultural
Center for however long is
necessary”
DERRICK BROWN
COMPOSER tomorrow
9TH GRADER
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