Posted: Wednesday, September 3, 2008 12:00 am
Local woman's love for Zimbabwean music sparks non-profit group
By Michelle Steinhebel, Lebanon Express writer
The first time Jaiaen Beck heard the music of Zimbabwe it struck a chord that led her to start a small grassroots organization, Ancient Ways, to assist the people behind the music. Almost nine years and 12 trips later, the non-profit has grown significantly, helping people from the African country build clean wells and acquire an education.
This Sunday, Sept. 7, a concert benefiting the non-profit organization will be held from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Ralston Park. The concert will feature Zimbabwean music, as well as crafts from the villages the group helps and children's toys, T-shirts, CDs, and food. River Springs Fellowship has partnered with the group to sponsor the benefit.
A marimba workshop will be offered at the concert. To register, call 259-HOPE.
Organizing this concert is fitting for Beck, since it was her love of the country's music that sparked the creation of the non-profit. She had met musicians who played Zimbabwean music in 1993 and quickly fell in love with the sound. In 1998, she met Cosmas Magaya, a musician who spoke of the country's problems - health and education issues, deforestation, HIV, hyperinflation, among others - and Beck knew she had to do something. She gave Magaya $60 for him to take back to his village and neighboring ones to help his people. In March 2000, she visited his village and he returned the money back to her. "Now, let's spend this together," Magaya told her.
"The project [Ancient Ways] started really small - just taking pencils, pens and $400 over - it's grown since then quite substantially," Beck said. Last year, the Lacomb-based organization raised about $50,000 for the cause.
The four main goals of Beck and Magaya are facilities improvements such as building huts and toilets, smokeless stoves, and clean wells for water; help with long-term sustainability, including micro-loans; educational empowerment such as health and HIV/AIDS training, preschool to university sponsorship and preschool feeding programs; and keeping their health center running. The health center focuses on alternative and traditional herbal remedies, although they also provide some conventional medical approaches.
"Zimbabwe is a difficult place to live right now, but our villages are doing better than most because of our support," Beck said. The organization has 13 main villages, which are part of two focus areas - Jangano and Nhimbe for Progress. However, an extra 22 nearby villages benefit from the preschool, which is part of the Nhimbe project.
This year, organizers are focusing on starting a primary school for children leaving the preschool, and on building more wells for the area.
"We now have a first-aid facility and we are really working hard to make sure the preschool kids get to go on to other schools, a primary school," Magaya said. "If we want to have better leaders we should grow them at the grassroots."
About 140 preschoolers attend the school. An additional 560 children, in both the Jangano and Nhimbe groups, attend government schools, which Ancient Ways pays the fees for. It is $35 a year to sponsor a child to go to school and the sponsor will receive a picture and letter from the child. Magaya, the leader of a village fittingly called "Magaya," also invites sponsors to visit Zimbabwe.
Additionally, the organization has dug wells for the preschool, ensuring that the children are growing not only mentally, but physically by having clean water to drink.
"Only one in 10 people have a clean well and a usable toilet. What this means is they may dig a hole to get water, which can be dangerous with what may be in the water's run-off," Beck explained. "It can cause a lot of health problems."
Since May, Ancient Ways has helped dig 62 wells. Now materials like concrete, bricks and other materials are needed to finish them. A professional builder is hired to build the wells.
Remaining true to their grassroots efforts, no one in the organization is salaried. The only paid staffer is a half-time secretary in an office, which has been donated by the River Springs Fellowship office. The staff member mainly keeps records for the non-profit.
"How we are organized is really critical to why we are successful. When people give money they know where it goes. We have a number of systems in place to audit and take care of things right away," Beck explained. "Our organization is very grassroots, where in others, decisions are made at the top level," Magaya added.
Beck does the work on the U.S. side without taking a salary because she doesn't want to take from the donations coming in. Her godfather, retired Lt. Cmdr. Clarence "John" Pare, Jr., of Lacomb, helps support her, and she also teaches marimba classes at the Albany Parks and Recreation department.
Magaya and Beck have worked hard to make sure the organization is self-sustaining by hiring individuals as dedicated to their cause as they are. For example, the manager for the Nhimbe project was raised in a village the organization aids and spent several years as a teacher.
"He takes things very seriously and doesn't want to see the project die," Magaya explained.
The last time Beck was in Zimbabwe was in October 2007 - she skipped her annual trip this year.
"Things were so bad there my team told me I needed to stay home," she said.
She hopes to go again in March 2009, but plans have yet to be solidified due to the turbulence in the country.
"By then the election should be over for quite some time and I'm hoping things will settle down," she said.
This is the second time she has postponed her annual trip to the country because of elections.
On the other hand, Magaya has kept up with his U.S. trips. His travels to the U.S. center around Zimbabwean music. He has done residencies at Cornell and Duke Universities, and spoken at several other colleges across the country. He will be in the U.S. until November and in that short time he will have visited four universities, as well as taught at a cultural arts center in Eugene.
For more information or to donate to Ancient Ways, visit its website at www.ancient-ways.org or call the office at 259-HOPE.