One of the many activities the African Students Association (ASA)members are doing this semester is looming hats for 65 children at an orphanage in Uganda.

So far the club has made 30 hats, but it is looking for more people to help complete the remaining 35 hats.

Many of the club members are taking the hats home to finish them.

Along with looming hats, three club members– freshmen Bethany Janzen and Noemi Jimenez and graduate student Barbara Kilbugi–attended the Regional Campus Compact Conference in Lincoln on Oct. 2-3. The theme for the conference was “Educating Citizens and Building Communities.”

One particularly beneficial session, according to the club members, was entitled “When Helping Hurts! The Ethics of International Service,” presented by Dr. Robert Hansen and Sandra Nivyabandi.

The presenters talked about their own experiences leading a service-learning study abroad group to East Africa.

While at the session, Janzen, Jimenex and Kibugi learned that the mission should:
-Focus on the real need and partnering with the locals.

-Respect the culture of the locals.

-Aim to develop and commit to sustainable and long-term outcomes.

-Identify local strengths rather than focus on the feeling of guilt and sympathy.

-To always remember that sometimes good intentions can lead to unintended consequences.

The club members concluded that “we enhanced our existing knowledge of service learning opportunities and learned novel information on how to serve without hurting recipient communities.”

One of the goals that ASA has is to present at next year’s Heartland Campus Compact conference held in Missouri. They want to talk about their ongoing project of looming hats and sending them to an orphanage in Uganda.

Jennifer Rose Sladky, a sophomore and ASA president, will travel to Amani Baby Cottage, an orphanage, in Jinja, Uganda, and hand the hats out to the orphans for three weeks, starting Dec. 12.

Sladky spent six weeks of summer 2013 at the Amani Baby Cottage.

“I fell in love with the children, the women that care for the children, the full time staff, and the people in the community,” Sladky said.

While Sladky was at the orphanage, she did numerous jobs.

“I worked all over the place, from being in one boys’ cottage with 15 boys who were between one and five. I then spent some time in the three-to-five year old preschool,” she said.

“I also taught the two-year-old preschool for a little while before getting moved into the girls’ cottage, where there were 17 girls who were between one and five,” she said.

After her trip to Uganda, she decided to major in early childhood inclusive education and K-6 special education. On the trip for this upcoming winter break, Sladky will work with the children again.

“This trip is all about me growing closer to the children and people that are still at the orphanage, gaining more hands on experience in my field of study, and growing closer to Christ throughout it all,” Sladky said.

As for the hats, many are different sizes and colors, since there is a range of ages at the orphanage.

The knitting club also helped, teaching the ASA club how to loom.

ASA Club is still looking for people to help with looming. It meets on Mondays from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Room 18 at the Student Center by the lower cafeteria.

Supplies will be provided.

ASA Club is one of many clubs sponsored by the Multicultural Organization. Other clubs are International Club, Black Student Union (BSU), Latinos Uniting (LU), Interfaith Action Group, PRIDE (People Respecting Individuals, Diversity, and Equality), Peer Educators Network (WSC-PEN) and Native American Student Alliance (NASA).

To learn more about any of the clubs go to the Multicultural Organization Office located in the lower gag.