{"id":22853,"date":"2015-01-15T10:58:16","date_gmt":"2015-01-15T15:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=22853"},"modified":"2025-07-11T13:53:39","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T17:53:39","slug":"for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/","title":{"rendered":"For fight against Ebola, international students plan fundraising event with Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee"},"content":{"rendered":"

After spending the summer thousands of miles from her native Liberia and watching nervously from afar as Ebola swept through her country, sophomore Winifred Gray-Johnson wanted to take action when she returned to the Eastern Mennonite University campus.<\/p>\n

She never imagined that desire, born from hours of long-distance conversation with her family members and prayer over the sufferings of fellow West Africans, would draw the attention and support of her university community \u2013 and a Nobel Peace laureate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoing something was a way to help myself with the panic of thinking about my family and what was going on in my country,\u201d said the economics<\/a> major. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to be silent and just sit on my hands, so I started thinking, \u2018What could I do?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That question quickly became \u201cWhat can we<\/em> do?\u201d when shared with fellow members of EMU\u2019s International Students Organization (ISO).<\/p>\n

To Gray-Johnson\u2019s surprise and delight, Liberian peace activist and Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee<\/a> (MA in conflict transformation<\/a> ’07) learned of the fledging movement and enthusiastically agreed to headline a fundraising dinner.<\/p>\n

Tickets for the Feb. 7 dinner with Gbowee<\/a> at EMU\u2019s Martin Chapel, with a seating capacity of 140, are $100, with $80 of that a tax-deductible donation to the Gbowee Peace Foundation<\/a> Africa. Dinner guests will receive preferred seating at a public lecture later in the evening in Lehman Auditorium.<\/p>\n

\"Leymah<\/a>
International Student Organization members (from left): Brenda Soka, Gee Paegar, Sun Ju Lee, Marcus Ekman, Kaltuma Noorow, Wael Gamtessa (back row), Norah Alobikan, Zoe Parakuo and Winifred Gray-Johnson. (Photo by Michael Sheeler)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A freewill offering will be taken at the lecture, with an online donation option<\/a> for those who cannot attend.<\/p>\n

To those who need most help<\/h3>\n

\u201cShe is helping us raise awareness, but at the same time, we know that this money will go through her organization to those who most need it, [to] the children who have lost family members or been displaced,\u201d Gray-Johnson said.<\/p>\n

Gbowee, who received the 2011 prize for her work in ending Liberia\u2019s civil war, says that her country\u2019s decade-long peace is threatened by Ebola.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must face another enemy from within,\u201d she wrote in an August 2014 op-ed published by The Guardian<\/em><\/a> in Britain. \u201c\u2026Ebola is resurrecting old traumas from those who survived the war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the Ebola outbreak began, Gbowee\u2019s Monrovia-based non-profit Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa<\/a> has contributed to community-based, grassroots education, outreach and awareness<\/a>. Donations from the EMU fundraiser will be shared by the foundation with two Liberian organizations founded by alumnae of EMU’s Women\u2019s Peacebuilding Leadership Program<\/a>: GSA Rock Hill Community Women in Monrovia, founded by Vaiba Flomo (CJP Grad. Cert. ’13), and Messengers of Peace, a youth outreach group founded by Gwendolyn Myers (CJP Grad. Cert. ’14).<\/p>\n

Gbowee\u2019s visit kicks off a series of events planned by the International Students Organization<\/a> in March, including a color run, chapel talk, and movie showing.<\/p>\n

Kaltuma Noorow, ISO co-president, said students have rallied to the cause, inspired first by Gray-Johnson\u2019s willingness to share how she and her family were personally affected by the outbreak.<\/p>\n

Wilfred Gray-Johnson, Winifred\u2019s father, is executive director of the Liberia Peacebuilding Office of the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund Secretariat<\/a>. During the outbreak, he and his team travelled frequently to rural areas \u201cto work on an early warning and response mechanism to ensure that Ebola did not lead to a national conflict,\u201d Gray-Johnson said. \u201cWhile in the field, he could see firsthand what was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

At later ISO planning meetings, student organizers discussed \u201cthe stigma of disease and who was getting aid and who wasn\u2019t, which led to conversations about who needed help who wasn\u2019t getting it. We\u2019ve all seen that in our own countries,\u201d said Noorow, a junior peacebuilding and development major from Kenya.<\/p>\n

Learning from action-taking<\/h3>\n
\"Winifred<\/a>
Winifred Gray-Johnson (left) and Kaltuma Noorow. (Photo by Jon Styer)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a year of new leadership and transition for the organization, Noorow credits ISO members for pulling together and taking on \u201chuge responsibilities\u201d to work on this fundraiser and the upcoming events in March, she said, adding that she\u2019s reluctant for any one member of the group to be singled out for attention. \u201cWe\u2019ve all learned a great deal from the process. It\u2019s important that every member be recognized for their thoughts and all the time spent deliberating and processing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her own involvement with the project has been empowering, Noorow added. \u201cIn class, we learn a lot of theory and just reading about it is great, but I\u2019m interested in change. I\u2019m a doer. This event shows that we students can actually do something given the platform. We never imagined it to reach this magnitude. It\u2019s been a lot of work and a lot of time, but we\u2019re all really excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

From following appropriate fundraising protocols to parsing out the correct wording for public relations releases and invitations, Gray-Johnson says the hands-on experience has taught her about the complex realities of fundraising for international causes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve learned a lot about professionalism and credibility, about raising money for a cause,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is important to me that the money raised here go through the right channels\u2026 [It helps that] Leymah\u2019s giving us her credibility and that of her foundation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noorow and Gray-Johnson both met Gbowee briefly when she came to campus in spring 2014 to deliver the commencement speech and celebrate the graduation of her son, Joshua Mensah, a digital media<\/a> major. They are looking forward to learning more about Gbowee\u2019s peacebuilding experiences from the woman herself.<\/p>\n

Gray-Johnson hopes to share the experience with her 14-year-old sister, Addy, who moved from Liberia this summer to Maryland, where she\u2019s living with an aunt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After spending the summer thousands of miles from her native Liberia and watching nervously from afar as Ebola swept through her country, sophomore Winifred Gray-Johnson wanted to take action when ... read more about For fight against Ebola, international students plan fundraising event with Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":22899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4515,266,5591,5583,14184,14715,12503,264,5623,4513,12507],"tags":[16258,16257,5944,16097,15487,10067,8510,5690,14386,16256],"feature":[],"class_list":["post-22853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-alumni","category-business-and-leadership","category-campus-community","category-campus-guests","category-campus-life","category-cjp","category-graduate-programs","category-special-programs","category-student-life","category-vaca","tag-ebola","tag-gbowee-peace-foundation-africa","tag-giving","tag-iso","tag-kaltuma-noorow","tag-leymah-gbowee","tag-nobel-peace-prize","tag-peacebuilding","tag-wilfred-gray-johnson","tag-winifred-gray-johnson"],"yoast_head":"\nFor fight against Ebola, international students plan fundraising event with Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee - EMU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"For fight against Ebola, international students plan fundraising event with Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee - EMU News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After spending the summer thousands of miles from her native Liberia and watching nervously from afar as Ebola swept through her country, sophomore Winifred Gray-Johnson wanted to take action when\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"EMU News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/EasternMennonite\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-01-15T15:58:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-07-11T17:53:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2015\/01\/Leymah_Gbowee_Ebola_Group_Unknown_web2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"610\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"370\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@EMU_News\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@EMU_News\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/\",\"name\":\"For fight against Ebola, international students plan fundraising event with Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee - EMU News\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2015\/01\/Leymah_Gbowee_Ebola_Group_Unknown_web2.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-01-15T15:58:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-11T17:53:39+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2015\/01\/Leymah_Gbowee_Ebola_Group_Unknown_web2.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2015\/01\/Leymah_Gbowee_Ebola_Group_Unknown_web2.jpg\",\"width\":610,\"height\":370},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"For fight against Ebola, international students plan fundraising event with Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/\",\"name\":\"EMU News\",\"description\":\"News from the Eastern Mennonite University community.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"For fight against Ebola, international students plan fundraising event with Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee - EMU News","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"For fight against Ebola, international students plan fundraising event with Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee - EMU News","og_description":"After spending the summer thousands of miles from her native Liberia and watching nervously from afar as Ebola swept through her country, sophomore Winifred Gray-Johnson wanted to take action when","og_url":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/","og_site_name":"EMU News","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/EasternMennonite","article_published_time":"2015-01-15T15:58:16+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-07-11T17:53:39+00:00","og_image":[{"width":610,"height":370,"url":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2015\/01\/Leymah_Gbowee_Ebola_Group_Unknown_web2.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@EMU_News","twitter_site":"@EMU_News","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/","url":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/","name":"For fight against Ebola, international students plan fundraising event with Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee - EMU News","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2015\/01\/Leymah_Gbowee_Ebola_Group_Unknown_web2.jpg","datePublished":"2015-01-15T15:58:16+00:00","dateModified":"2025-07-11T17:53:39+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2015\/01\/Leymah_Gbowee_Ebola_Group_Unknown_web2.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2015\/01\/Leymah_Gbowee_Ebola_Group_Unknown_web2.jpg","width":610,"height":370},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/for-fight-against-ebola-international-students-plan-fundraising-event-with-nobel-laureate-leymah-gbowee\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"For fight against Ebola, international students plan fundraising event with Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/","name":"EMU News","description":"News from the Eastern Mennonite University community.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":""}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22853"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59268,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22853\/revisions\/59268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22853"},{"taxonomy":"feature","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/feature?post=22853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}