“Put your iPads, your iPhones, your iMacs and your iWhatevers down and shake the instrument that God gave you,” Bernard Woma, leader of the Bernard Woma African Music and Dance troupe, said to the attendees of the sixth annual Taste of East Africa event.
More than 100 people arrived at the school Saturday evening to participate in the Kilimanjaro Education Outreach’s main fundraiser of the year.
The small, Bloomington-based nonprofit works to support education in East Africa. Though it is specifically focused on Tanzania, where its founding members are from, the organization is making efforts to expand its reach to Kenya.
The group, along with its chapter in Oregon, currently helps support the Huruma School, a school in Tanzania dedicated to children with disabilities. It also provides scholarships for secondary school students and helps provide education to orphaned children with its “Between the Islands Education Scholarships.”
The latter project is dedicated specifically to children orphaned in the devastating ferry disaster of 2012, when a boat carrying more than 250 people sank between mainland Tanzania and the island of Zanzibar.
“By doing this, we’re creating awareness that there’s a lot of needs out there,” said Khalfan Mohamed, one of KILEO’s founding members. “There’s needs here, of course, but there’s a far greater need in the developing world.”
Mohamed, who now teaches at IU, said his own family was not well off when he was growing up. Because of this, he is even more motivated to help other young people in the same way he himself was helped: with the opportunity to be educated.
The night featured a silent auction of brightly colored blankets, traditional African beaded necklaces, woven baskets and paintings.
Guests were treated to a traditional East African meal of mandazi, a sort of African doughnut, samosas, kidney beans in coconut milk, beef stew, tabuli and chapatti, a kind of tortilla.
“Meeting the people is the best part of it,” Billy Giles, the nonprofit’s treasurer, said. “It’s always fun to meet new people and broaden your cultural horizons.”
Giles has now been to Tanzania six times, visiting libraries and schools with the organization. Giles said one year the project was able to purchase textbooks for an entire primary school.
During their speech to the audience, the event’s organizers said they hope to use the money raised to do things like fund transportation for children to get to school, build a fence around a school and pay teachers.
The group has only six active members and is currently searching for more.
“We want to invite everyone to join in the organization,” Mohamed said. “We want to have more members and more active participation.”
As the sun set and food disappeared from plates, the music began again.
“Bad dancing never hurt the ground,” Woma said, inviting the crowd to its feet again.
