December
3, 2004
From
Cameroon to South Hadley: LITS Intern oumarou-hamadou
Photo
by: Todd M. LeMieux
oumarou-hamadou |
When Kathleen Norton, director of collection
development for LITS, posted a notice at colleges and universities
around the country calling for LITS internship applicants, she
had no idea she would land a candidate with the résumé and
aspirations of oumarou-hamadou.
A 33-year-old native of Cameroon, oumarou has variously been a professional soccer
player and coach, an artist and woodworker, gallery owner, and teacher. On top
of this, he is the founder of Village International, a grassroots organization
that supports AIDS orphans and widows in Garoua-Boulai, the village in Cameroon
where he grew up.
Oumarou first came to the United States in 1998 and was considering a recruitment
from the Cleveland Crunch soccer team. Within months, however, a knee injury
sidelined him and he set his sights instead on a college education. He graduated
in May 2004 from Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, with a joint degree in French
and political science. He had intended to return to Cameroon after college to
pursue various Village International projects, including setting up a pediatric
hospital inclusive of AIDS orphans, a school, and library. But midway through
his senior year the LITS internship flyer caught his eye. “I thought it
would be better to get some library experience rather than jump in headfirst,” he
said. He sent in his application and “things started falling into place.”
According to Norton, the Mellon Librarian Recruitment Program aims to broaden
the racial and ethnic composition of the library science profession as demographic
data point to a coming shortage of librarians. Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation, the program has several components that include the undergraduate
internship, designed to give students a thorough understanding of librarianship
as a profession. Oumarou is working in several areas under mentors at the library
and in the College’s archives.
After completing the internship, oumarou plans to continue his work with Village
International. He is applying for 501(c) 3 tax-exempt status for his organization,
which is now registered as a nonprofit in Ohio, and hopes to obtain grants and
other funding. He explained that AIDS has left many children without parents
and women without husbands. In many cases, the surviving families’ inheritance
rights are violated due to the stigma of AIDS, denying them financial support
that is rightfully theirs. Village International sets up AIDS widows as foster
mothers for AIDS orphans, and pairs the widows with skilled women who train them
in trades so that they can achieve economic independence.
Oumarou’s ultimate goal is to extend education to girls, who currently
are denied schooling past the age of 14 or so. “I want to empower women,” he
explained. “People are afraid of women with power, so they keep them without
education and emancipation.”
Being at Mount Holyoke has opened oumarou’s eyes to the power of women’s
education. “It’s good for me to see all these women studying seriously
and knowing that there’s nothing wrong with it,” he said. He has
met with Eva Paus, director of the College’s new Center for Global Initiatives,
and with CGI’s coordinator for educational opportunities abroad, Anita
Deeg-Carlin, who worked as a Peace Corps volunteer and trainer in Madagascar.
Oumarou hopes to forge mutually beneficial connections between Village Inter-national
and the College. LITS hosted a Concert for Cameroon in Blanchard on Thursday,
November 18, to raise money for his work.
“We are delighted to have oumarou with us as our Mellon intern,” said
Pat Albanese, chief information officer and executive director of LITS. “He
embodies the spirit of the program to bring diversity to the library profession.
His work with LITS has enriched our understanding of the issues of information
access beyond the U.S. And we believe our work with him deepens his understanding
of the principles and processes of librarianship that will assist him in his
aspirations to increase information access to the people of Cameroon.”
“I am optimistic,” said oumarou. “It’s destiny for me
to be here.”
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