Sara Richardson has not yet set foot in the West African nation of Mali, but she is already helping to improve the lives of the people in one of the world's poorest countries. In February, Richardson, a senior health major at SUNY Cortland, finished raising the $2,650 needed to send a Blue Trunk, a metal container filled with up-to-date medical and health information supplied by the World Health Organization (WHO) to Mali. The trunk has been shipped to a malaria research center in Bancoumana, a small town 70 kilometers from the capital, Bamako. Richardson, a 20-year-old from Hilton, began her fundraising last September by soliciting contributions in health classes, residence halls, the student union and in grocery stores and her church in her hometown. What made her fundraising unusual was that it included a raffle of three instruments handmade by her father: a harp, a psaltery and a thumb piano. "I didn't think it would take that long to raise all the money," she said. She sold $1,200 in raffle tickets. "I'm glad it's over." Richardson is the first SUNY Cortland student to raise money for the Blue Trunk project, which was launched by WHO in 1996 to provide medical information to health care workers in remote areas of developing countries. The project has supplied 1,542 trunks to sites in 69 countries, primarily in Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean. In May, she will travel to Bamako for a six-week internship with Ibrahima Coulibaly, a physician she met through Kassim Koné, an associate professor of sociology and anthropology at the college. Because of the internship, which she designed herself, Richardson requested that WHO send the trunk to Mali. "I didn't have any idea of where I wanted to go," Richardson said. "Around the same time I was working on the trunk, I was working on going to Mali and I said, 'It would be nice if it could go to Mali.' " While she is in Mali, Richardson hopes to visit the trunk and see it put to use, though she will not be working with it for her internship. Koné will also be visiting Mali next summer and has offered to drive her to see the trunk in Bancoumana, she said. Richardson learned about the Blue Trunk project after attending a one-week conference last June organized by the University of Florida at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. She also traveled to Montreux, Switzerland, last year to study French, one of the official languages of Mali. After being contacted to help with the project, Cathy Smith, the college's health educator, said she was concerned that Richardson might not be able to raise enough money. The Blue Trunk itself costs $2,000 while the shipping to Mali is an additional $650. What pushed her fundraising over the top was a $1,000 contribution from the owners of the Schoenhut Toy Piano Company, with whom her father, John, works in making instruments. Sara and her father were attending a convention in Anaheim, California in January when the company owners agreed to make the donation. March 18, 2007 |
