April 3, 2007

Randolph women roll the dice on Ethiopian orphans
LAURA BRUNO DAILY RECORD

RANDOLPH -- Seventeen years ago, a dozen Randolph women --young mothers at the time -- decided it would be fun to get together once a month and play a game of dice.

Today, the dice game has taken a back seat to the group's true mission -- saving the lives of Ethiopian orphans. Since 2001, when the ladies began putting $60 in their Bonko dice game pot to help Ethiopian children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic, they have raised nearly $11,000. Considering it costs just $120 a year to care for one of these children, last year the group fully supported 30 orphans.

Now, they're raising the ante and hoping others outside their small circle will contribute to the cause. In February, they incorporated the Medhen Orphan Relief Effort, creating a nonprofit corporation.

"Ours has been a small contribution, but a consistent one," said Maureen Strenk, 54, a legal secretary, who introduced her friends to the idea of supporting the orphans in late 2000. "These children are beautiful and deserve some hope in their lives."

The nonprofit is named after the Medhen Social Center, a program run by former Sister of Charity, Sister Senkenesh G. Miram, located in a leprosy colony outside Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa. She supports more than 400 orphans who are placed in foster families.

The children receive food, clothing, basic medical care, counseling, uniforms and supplies to attend school and skill training, including knitting, car repair and driving. The foster families also receive financial support and counseling.

Strenk learned of the Medhen Social Center through Jim Miller, a former Sparta resident profiled in the Daily Record seven years ago. At the time, Miller was raising money for Ethiopian AIDS orphans through the Sparta Crop Walk. Today, he raises some $50,000 a year to support 416 orphans and their foster families in Sister Senkenesh's program.

"These Randolph women are making a huge difference," Miller said. " They are regular people who have rallied to our cause and anybody can do that."

Ethiopia had some 720,000 AIDS orphans in 2003, according to the 2004 Children on the Brink report, published by UNICEF. The report estimates 12.3 million children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. It also estimates the orphan population will increase in the next decade as more HIV-positive parents become ill and die from AIDS.

The original story about Miller was published during the 2000 Christmas season. Strenk, stressed out by hectic holiday preparations, said her outlook changed when she saw the published photo of Miller with the orphans. Although the children had lost their parents to AIDS, she said they showed great happiness that one man was paying attention to them.

Beginning in January 2001, Strenk and her friends would collect $60 at the Bonko game for the children. Over the years, they quadrupled their monthly donations. In addition, an extended network of friends and family began contributing. Other friends who gather for birthdays decided to make financial donations. And family members in a weight loss contest also chipped in.

All the money raised goes directly to supporting the children. There is no administrative overhead. The women send the money directly to Sister Senkenesh, who responds with thanks via email.

"To each one of you I would tell you my deep gratitude," Sister Senkenesh wrote to Strenk in a September 2006 email, following a donation of $850."Your continued support means a lot to me and the children."

In March 2006 Strenk received an email after sending new books to the children.

"For the third time I went to the General Post Office and I collected the fifth box of books that you sent in July," Sister Senkenesh wrote. "Our librarian is very happy to receive these delightful books as the children were bored reading and re-reading the existing books."

Now, the Randolph group is beginning to reach out to others through organized fundraisers. Bonko member Diane Padula, director of the Learning Nest School in Randolph, recently offered her school as a venue for a jewelry party fundraiser that brought in $2,000. On April 28, the group is holding an invitation-only fundraiser in member Barbara Zecca's home that will feature Miller as a speaker.

"He is so passionate and inspirational," said Christine Dziubla, 60, a preschool teacher assistant and Bonko game member. "After meeting Jim, none of us could stop being involved. It's been so gratifying and heartwarming to be involved with something where you really feel you make a difference."

Miller is the director of the Scholar Rescue Fund at the Institute of International Education in New York, but his passion is the AIDS orphans of Ethiopia. He returns to Ethiopia once a year to visit the children.

Expected to accompany Miller to the fundraiser is Dr. Asqual Getaneh, a native Ethiopian and a New York Presbyterian Hospital internist who develops HIV/AIDS awareness programs. Connie Britton, an actress appearing in the TV show "Friday Night Lights," also is expected to attend. Britton has recently produced a documentary on Ethiopian orphans.

During Miller's visit to Ethiopia in 2000, he met Sister Senkenesh who offered various social supports to a colony of lepers, who were largely ostracized from society. While visiting with the nun, Miller witnessed a woman trying to leave two children with the nun, because the children's parents had died of AIDS.

From that experience an idea was formed that matches orphaned children with foster families in the colony. Miller pledged to raise money for the effort and he has. The Randolph group is just one of the benefactors. The Good Shepard Church in Andover also supports the Medhen Social Center, Miller said.

Starting with the two children Miller saw dropped off in 2000, the Medhen Social Center today supports 416 children under the age of 18, 75 percent of whom have been orphaned due to AIDS.

Rather than institutionalizing these children in orphanages, they are placed with couples that either could not have children of their own, or who welcome them into their own families, Miller said. If surviving relatives live nearby, they try to keep the children with family members.

Leprosy is curable today and not the highly contagious disease that it previously was thought to be, according to the World Health Organization. The children are given medication that would prevent them from contracting the disease, Miller said. The foster parents are healthy and not disabled by the disease.

"We are saving lives in the real sense of the word," Miller said.

Laura Bruno can be reached at (973) 428-6626 or lbruno2@gannett.com.

~ Giving hope…..to M.O.R.E. children ~

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