Lemmy Ejorewoia and Pierre Mopo Gonhameu, both natives of Africa, will be giving first-hand accounts of their experiences in Africa on April 10 at 6:15 p.m. in Watkins Auditorium, with a reception following the event.
Ejorewoia was hired by the U.N. to teach English, art, music and physical education at the Lost Boys Kakuma Refugee Camp from 2000-2004 and will speak on his time as a teacher at the refugee camp and why the U.S. should still care about what goes on in South Sudan. Gonhameu, a senior Marketing major, has played basketball at UTM since 2010.
The event, sponsored by the UTM student chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, will explore the technological overhaul planned for South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation located in Africa. The South Sudanese secession from Sudan in 2011 lead to the formation of a country with a literacy rate that is among the lowest in the world, with only 27 percent of the male population and even less of the female population able to read.
Also speaking at this event will be Dr. Trisha Capansky, Assistant Professor of English and Modern Foreign Language at UTM. Capansky will be discussing the cultural changes likely to occur after introducing technological communication to a nation that primarily relies on spoken and occasionally radio communication. The U.S., in return for access to South Sudan’s oil reserves, is planning to have digital communication replace oral communication in the country within a three-year time frame.
The development of digital communication in South Sudan will be challenging, because most of the nation lives in poverty. Normally retail stores are the only structures made of metal and are accessed by dirt tracks.
“To further visualize the conditions in this country, consider that the British Council, working to integrate English into these businesses and households, has its office in the back of Juba’s De Havana Lounge and Bar,” Capansky said.
