In response to the ongoing controversy over student group access to the University Organizing Center, students have formed an interim UOC Coordinating Committee that will seek to address problems of miscommunication between the administration, Public Safety, the WSA, and students who use the UOC.
After the tragic death of Johanna Justin-Jinich ’10 last spring, many students struggled to find a way to pay homage to their friend.
Whether you have seen them mentioned on the University homepage, hosting a concert at Psi U or organizing a walk-a-thon in front of Usdan, Wesleyan Friends of Africa (WFA) seems to be all over campus.
When activists consider about how to improve the conditions of life in Africa, they tend to approach the continent’s vast problems in a number of ways. On Wednesday, around 70 students and staff in Usdan heard two experts, Samuel Watulatsu and Kennedy Odede ’12, espouse a relatively similar attitude toward addressing East African poverty—one that stressed self-reliance over outside relief. Although the presenters were generally of the same mind, Odede’s dynamic and deeply personal address provided a stark contrast to Watulatsu’s straightforward PowerPoint-based speech—a difference that highlighted the generation gap between the two.
Relatively stable only days before, Kibera, the home of Kennedy Odede ’12, suddenly became ground zero in the violent conflict between Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader Raila Odinga in late December, 2007. Having barely escaped across the country to the coastal city of Mombosa, Odede and his friends sat in shock, watching their homes burn on the television screen.
For the three years after he graduated high school, Kennedy Odede ’12 of Kibera, Kenya carried rocks between a train and a factory for a dollar a day. The work was tiresome and unrewarding, yet Odede’s parents — like some 80 percent of the citizens of Kibera — could not find jobs, and so Odede was also responsible for feeding his seven younger siblings.
While many students were startled by the violent altercation on Fountain Avenue last semester, public violence is nothing new for Kennedy Odede ’12. Hailing from the Kenyan slum of Kibera, Odede comes from a place where there are no police, a place where violence is the law.