Thursday, April 30, 2009
YOU SPEAK, WE LISTEN
Radnor, Pa.
CABRINI COLLEGE
Pacemaker Winner Vol L, Issue 25
www.theloquitur.com
Student trip prompts Fair Trade coffee expansion christine graf deputy editor
acg724@cabrini.edu
staff photographer
Kara Schneider, Christine Graf, Jessica Hagerty and Jillian Smith speak with a Guatemalan coffee farmer about the process of coffee at San Lucas Mission in Guatemala.
Cabrini’s catering service, Sodexo, is currently negotiating with San Lucas Mission’s fairly traded Juan Ana coffee to be featured in over 200 of Jazzman’s locations throughout the United States during October, which is Fair Trade month. The idea was sparked when Drew Niemann, Sodexo’s general manager for Cabrini College, heard that the college president, five students, two faculty members and two staff members would be visiting a fairly-traded coffee farm in Guatemala. “I try to take what’s important to the school and take what they are trying to accomplish and incorporate it into our services … especially when it is something like this, an important cause,” Niemann said. The trip to Guatemala was a jump-start on the college’s new curriculum Justice Matters, to be implemented in the fall. “We are, through our students,
partnering with a corporation to develop and deepen a commitment to social justice, which is really a big contribution,” Dr. Mary Laver, director of international partnerships and participant of the trip, said. “We’re walking the walk and not just talking in the classroom.” San Lucas Mission’s Juan Ana coffee is dedicated to paying their farmers a fair wage no matter the current price of coffee, which tends to fluctuate. While visiting the mission Cabrini students worked alongside Guatemalan farmers helping to pick and sort the coffee berries that could very well be the coffee on campus in October. “Picking coffee in Guatemala was an amazing experience. It was something I had never done before and never expected to do. I didn’t realize how much hard work was put into a cup of coffee,” Jillian Smith, senior English and communication major and a participant of the trip, said. Sodexo coffee supplier, May
SODEXO, page 3
Program provides aid to Iraq war refugees liz garrett news editor
egg722@cabrini.edu diana trasatti copy editor
dlt722@cabrini.edu
The brutal and vicious realities of war are an everyday occurrence for the people of Iraq. Violent outbreaks have caused persistent and abundant visual images of injury, death, kidnapping and torture to the citizens of the country. Physical effects of the war are damaging and apparent; but the impact of the emotional and psychological damages that the war in Iraq is causing has gone unaided, until now. A new program has recently been developed by Catholic Relief Services to provide psychological treatment for the Iraqi refugees who have experienced these traumatic events first hand. “There were cases of persons, someone from their family was assassinated in front of their eyes. We have many children also
INSIDE
this week’s edition
who were kidnapped or in front of them they saw severe scenes of torture,” Isaaze Saade, employee of Caritas Lebanon, said. Six-year-old Omar was kidnapped in Iraq. He was captured because, even though he is a Christian, his name is Muslim. With the religious wars raging, Omar was imprisoned with numerous other children of the same name. “He has been refusing, until now his parents call him by his name, so he changed his name. He hates his name,” Saade said. Cases like Omar’s are not uncommon and the Iraqi Refugee Trauma Relief Program provides counseling, medical attention, education and psychological follow-up to the citizens of Iraq who have been a victim of torture, imprisonment, kidnapping or a witness to any of these events. While addressing these issues are imperative to the psychological well being of refugees, they do not always actively seek the help that they need. “If we remove the idea of a di-
agnosis from the idea of trauma and just really help people to understand that trauma unfortunately is an effect of the many unfortunate consequences of war. It’s not just about removing the stigma but trying to give people a reason to understand that what they have is not something of a deficit but a consequence of circumstances under which they have no control,” Arlene Flaherty, CRS representative, said. Flaherty was instrumental in initiating the program. Even though there was some hesitation from Iraqis to go through with the program, since its start this year it has gained acceptance and the number of clients has grown so significantly that there was a need to hire an additional psychologist. The trauma programs are organized into groups that relate to the experience of each Iraqi. Victims of rape, torture, kidnapping and imprisonment all have a forum where they can gather to
RELIEF, page 3
Autism Awareness Month Page 8
laura sheahen/submitted photo
Afraid of being targeted for murder because of their childrens’ Shia names, an Iraqi family was forced to flee their country and relocate.
Music gets a political makeover
Page 10