Multicultural Awareness Night at UW-S

The University of Wisconsin-Sheboygan will host a special Multicultural Awareness Night, presented by the UW-Sheboygan Upward Bound program, Monday, Nov. 16, at 6 p.m. in room 2114 (Wombat Room).

The special event will feature a series of speakers on topics related to multicultural leadership and community outreach and assistance. The evening also will feature a special presentation about life in Uganda and the hardships that children and adults in this country must endure.

First, guests are invited to listen as the UW-Sheboygan Southeast Asian Club (SEAC) reports on what they learned from a recent conference at UW-Stevens Point regarding multicultural awareness and programming. SEAC President and UW-Sheboy-gan student Linda Lee will share information learned from the conference and announce events that SEAC has planned for the coming academic year on the UWSheboygan campus.

Second, UW-Sheboygan Upward Bound participant and Sheboygan South High School sophomore Pa Thao will discuss Upward Bound’s fall service program which involves collecting textbooks for the “Invisible Children” book drive.

Textbooks will be collected on the UW-Sheboygan campus (Commons), South High School, North High School and Lakeland College until January 2010, and will be provided to Ugandan children and former child soldiers who have been freed from their captors and are rebuilding their lives through education. The books will be used to offer them the opportunity to learn and discover a new way of life.

Upward Bound is a federally funded TRIO program offered at both the UW-Sheboygan and UWManitowoc campuses. Locally, students who are first-generation college students from both North and South High School participate in the program throughout their high school years in order to become better prepared for college.

To drive home the impact and purpose of the “Invisible Children” service project, the Rev. Elijah Musoke, founder of Living Hope International Ministries in Uganda, will address the Upward Bound students and community guests.

Rev. Musoke, who, along with his wife, runs a mission outreach program and orphanage in his native Uganda, will share his experiences growing up in Uganda and the many challenges he had to overcome in his lifetime. Specifically, he will discuss the high unemployment and poverty rates in the country, as well as the challenges to feed and educate Uganda’s youth.

All UW-Sheboygan students, faculty, staff and Sheboygan-area residents are encouraged to attend this presentation. Admission is free.

For more information on this event, contact Carrie Hoppe, UW-Sheboygan Director of University Relations, at (920) 459-6612 or e-mail carrie.hoppe@uwc.edu.