The Residential Option in Arts and Lettersmm will wrap up the semester with a holiday event from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday at the Union featuring student projects with Sudanese refugees.
The 90 students involved with ROIAL began their outreach for Sudanese refugees called the Lost Boys this semester with help from Lansing Refugee Services.
The event, Sharing Stories, Sharing Lives: A Celebration of Cultures, will showcase student service projects that featured semester-long tutoring, mentoring and fun. Students produced scrapbooks, drumming sessions and videos exhibiting their activities with the refugees.
Anita Skeen, a professor of English and ROIAL director, said the group participated in several activities throughout the semester with the Lost Boys, including basketball, swing dancing and a trip to a Detroit Pistons game.
“The Lost Boys love basketball,” she said. “We felt it was important to be in activities with them and have fun.”
As for student involvement, Skeen said ROIAL students were receptive to the idea.
“We have provided them with an opportunity that they might not have had,” she said. “And they are glad they did it.”
Stephen Esquith, Department of Philosophy chairperson and ROIAL faculty adviser, said he was excited that the project involved the university.
“We have been able to support several community projects between ROIAL students and members of refugee groups,” he said. “It’s coming at just the right time where immigrants and refugees need to be made to feel a part of the community.”
He said the refugee service opportunities were the result of help from a Michigan Campus Compact Community Engagement Grant, the Honors College and the College of Arts and Letters.CMnj
In addition to his work with ROIAL, Esquith’s IAH course, “Genocide, Justice and Reconciliation,” will include a service project with Lansing Refugee Services and Wardcliff Elementary School in Okemos.
As part of his project, theater sophomore Mike Deron said he decided to get the refugees involved in swing dancing. Deron said he will present a video featuring the swing dancing he and his Sudanese refugees performed.
“The Lost Boys said they were interested in meeting girls, so I thought It would be cool to give them a social tool,” he said. “I felt that swing dancing would be great for them.”
He said he wanted to give the Lost Boys a taste of American culture.
“We tried to incorporate a little bit of the culture and the history behind swing dancing. It’s one of the old-fashioned American pastimes; it combines with the social aspect of the project,” he said.
Deron said he was reluctant to get involved, but threw himself into it.
“We learned a lot about their culture and the struggle they have been through,” he said. “It gives you an appreciation.”
