Visitor from Africa finds hope with STEMM
By John Quinlan, Journal staff writer | Posted: Thursday, November 29, 2007
Visiting a farm near Akron this week proved to be a real eye-opener for 32-year-old Wilson Elisha, a visitor from Tanzania who for the past four years has served as director of the Education Foundation for STEMM -- the Siouxland-Tanzania Education Medical Ministries.
Taken to the farm by a friend, the Tanzanian country boy who wielded a sturdy hoe to help put himself through school with money earned by farming and other hard labor found his hoe rather insignificant when he saw his first U.S. farm combine.
"And I realized I had nothing to help as far as farming is concerned," he said. "Then they took me to the dairy project where they were milking cows. The whole thing was computerized!"
Siouxland hospitals were equally dazzling. Tanzanian patients transferred to a Sioux City hospital wouldn't want to leave, he said, the experience too closely resembling (for them) a stay in a fancy tourist hotel.
Such was the cultural shock Elisha experienced before speaking at tonight's annual STEMM fundraising auction at the Marina Inn in South Sioux City.
Elisha was born in humble surroundings in a remote area of Tanzania, living in a mud hut that was a too-short 4 feet tall, STEMM president Dr. Steven Meyer said. He shared a makeshift bed with seven brothers and sisters. The bed consisted of sticks across a pit covered with a cow's hide, and the kids shared one small blanket.
Elisha herded cows and goats with his brothers and sisters and was beaten regularly by his father until his father found God in jail, converted to Christianity and changed his ways. When Elisha was 11, he was allowed to go to school, and in those early years, his father even paid for his tuition.
"My father paid for my fees up to Form 2," which was the equivalent of junior high, he said. And though his father could no longer afford to send him to school, he allowed him to continue if he could find the money to do so. So Elisha did a lot of gardening, sold some vegetables, worked a milling and grinding machine and earned his $150 annual tuition at the country's manual labor rate of $1 a day. He eventually worked his way through college, even as he was earning more money to pay the tuition fees for younger brother Charles.
"And so he had to work and work and work and not hardly eat anything just to pay for his school fees," Meyer said. "The level of dedication and commitment that he had to send himself to school to make a better life for he and his family is ... just amazing. It's phenomenal."
It is the dedication that got Elisha the STEMM job while he was still a college student, Meyer noted.
"Wilson is a living example of what education can do," he said. "It's just amazing to me. Not only how his life has changed, but think of how many others' lives he's changed by him being educated ... because he's tireless in his work for the kids. I mean he knows 800 kids by name, and their lives are changed by what he's helping us do in Tanzania -- and being a great ambassador for STEMM. And being a great ambassador for the United States."
Elisha said in his speech tonight he plans to give a "living testament" of what STEMM is doing in his country. The student scholarships are making a "huge impact, a change which is really sustainable to the community of Tanzania," he said.
When visiting the nearly 800 STEMM-sponsored students in Tanzania, Elisha said he is often told by many of them that they thought they were born by accident. Now, these same students have hope, he said.
SOUTH SIOUX CITY -- Local philanthropist and community leader Regina Roth, who with her husband Eldon owns Beef Products Inc., will be the annual Friend of STEMM award recipient at tonight's STEMM fundraising auction, titled "A Night of Hope," at the Marina Inn in South Sioux City.
The Siouxland-Tanzania Education Medical Ministries gives the award to an organization or individual who outside of STEMM has done the most to facilitate its work, either financially or otherwise, said Dr. Steven Meyer, STEMM's president.
"Regina's been more than a financial supporter from the very beginning," Meyer said. "She's given advice, support, financial contributions. She opened her home up for a fundraiser. So she's just been very much on board right from the beginning of STEMM."
Meyer, a Siouxland orthopaedic surgeon, started STEMM 11 years ago to expand both orthopaedic and non-orthopaedic medical services in that country. The organization has since expanded to fund scholarships for 750 Tanzanian high school students and 31 college students. And STEMM is in the midst of $1.2 million fundraising campaign to build a $1 million orphanage in Tanzania.
Most of the funds raised from the live and silent auction will be used for student scholarships. "Our goal for next year is a thousand kids in school," Meyer said.
The STEMM dinner and auction is from 5 to 9 p.m. Auction items include wine, one-of-a-kind African artwork, vacations and get-away packages.
Taken to the farm by a friend, the Tanzanian country boy who wielded a sturdy hoe to help put himself through school with money earned by farming and other hard labor found his hoe rather insignificant when he saw his first U.S. farm combine.
"And I realized I had nothing to help as far as farming is concerned," he said. "Then they took me to the dairy project where they were milking cows. The whole thing was computerized!"
Siouxland hospitals were equally dazzling. Tanzanian patients transferred to a Sioux City hospital wouldn't want to leave, he said, the experience too closely resembling (for them) a stay in a fancy tourist hotel.
Such was the cultural shock Elisha experienced before speaking at tonight's annual STEMM fundraising auction at the Marina Inn in South Sioux City.
Elisha was born in humble surroundings in a remote area of Tanzania, living in a mud hut that was a too-short 4 feet tall, STEMM president Dr. Steven Meyer said. He shared a makeshift bed with seven brothers and sisters. The bed consisted of sticks across a pit covered with a cow's hide, and the kids shared one small blanket.
Elisha herded cows and goats with his brothers and sisters and was beaten regularly by his father until his father found God in jail, converted to Christianity and changed his ways. When Elisha was 11, he was allowed to go to school, and in those early years, his father even paid for his tuition.
"My father paid for my fees up to Form 2," which was the equivalent of junior high, he said. And though his father could no longer afford to send him to school, he allowed him to continue if he could find the money to do so. So Elisha did a lot of gardening, sold some vegetables, worked a milling and grinding machine and earned his $150 annual tuition at the country's manual labor rate of $1 a day. He eventually worked his way through college, even as he was earning more money to pay the tuition fees for younger brother Charles.
"And so he had to work and work and work and not hardly eat anything just to pay for his school fees," Meyer said. "The level of dedication and commitment that he had to send himself to school to make a better life for he and his family is ... just amazing. It's phenomenal."
It is the dedication that got Elisha the STEMM job while he was still a college student, Meyer noted.
"Wilson is a living example of what education can do," he said. "It's just amazing to me. Not only how his life has changed, but think of how many others' lives he's changed by him being educated ... because he's tireless in his work for the kids. I mean he knows 800 kids by name, and their lives are changed by what he's helping us do in Tanzania -- and being a great ambassador for STEMM. And being a great ambassador for the United States."
Elisha said in his speech tonight he plans to give a "living testament" of what STEMM is doing in his country. The student scholarships are making a "huge impact, a change which is really sustainable to the community of Tanzania," he said.
When visiting the nearly 800 STEMM-sponsored students in Tanzania, Elisha said he is often told by many of them that they thought they were born by accident. Now, these same students have hope, he said.
SOUTH SIOUX CITY -- Local philanthropist and community leader Regina Roth, who with her husband Eldon owns Beef Products Inc., will be the annual Friend of STEMM award recipient at tonight's STEMM fundraising auction, titled "A Night of Hope," at the Marina Inn in South Sioux City.
The Siouxland-Tanzania Education Medical Ministries gives the award to an organization or individual who outside of STEMM has done the most to facilitate its work, either financially or otherwise, said Dr. Steven Meyer, STEMM's president.
"Regina's been more than a financial supporter from the very beginning," Meyer said. "She's given advice, support, financial contributions. She opened her home up for a fundraiser. So she's just been very much on board right from the beginning of STEMM."
Meyer, a Siouxland orthopaedic surgeon, started STEMM 11 years ago to expand both orthopaedic and non-orthopaedic medical services in that country. The organization has since expanded to fund scholarships for 750 Tanzanian high school students and 31 college students. And STEMM is in the midst of $1.2 million fundraising campaign to build a $1 million orphanage in Tanzania.
Most of the funds raised from the live and silent auction will be used for student scholarships. "Our goal for next year is a thousand kids in school," Meyer said.
The STEMM dinner and auction is from 5 to 9 p.m. Auction items include wine, one-of-a-kind African artwork, vacations and get-away packages.
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minnow wrote on Nov 29, 2007 11:21 PM:
shocked wrote on Nov 29, 2007 3:10 PM:
minnow wrote on Nov 29, 2007 4:20 AM: