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10/26/2016 08:45 AMThe world is a big place, but on Sunday, Nov. 6, shoreline residents will have a chance to experience it in a small town. Rotary clubs of Essex, Deep River, Chester, Mystic, and Haddam-Killingworth have organized an international fair featuring not only food, games, and gifts from around the globe, but also a look at the different worldwide humanitarian projects area communities support. The event, sponsored by the Global Collaborative of five local Rotary clubs, will take place at Congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek in Chester from 2 to 5 p.m. The program is free.
“We want people to come, families to come, to learn and to have fun,” said Jan Taigen, a member of the Chester Rotary Club.
Highlighting the international perspective of the event, there will be games and crafts from Asia, Africa, and South America for children. Young attendees will be able to make a Panamian mola, traditionally a cloth picture, using colored paper; create his or her own African tic toc drum; and make an Asian dragon puppet. Children are also encouraged to bring a picture they have drawn illustrating the event’s theme: Building Bridges Across the World. Taigen, a retired teacher, will lead the crafts projects.
Everybody will be able to sample food from around the world with different soups created by Hedy Watrous of the Deep River Rotary, proprietor of a local restaurant, The Whistle Stop. There will also be a potato bar and a rice bar, with different toppings representing different culinary traditions.
Cheryl Archer, the head of the Global Collaborative as well as the president of the Chester Rotary Club, said the idea was that the Rotary clubs could provide a forum to bring local humanitarian organizations together to explain their work.
“We imagine the Rotary as a hub, pulling in different people from different communities explaining what they do. After all, the symbol of Rotary is a wheel,” she said.
Archer, who just took over as Chester Rotary president in July, said she wanted to place an emphasis during her tenure on partnering with existing organizations already involved in humanitarian projects.
“We looked at all the different things people in the community were doing and thought, ‘Why not put this all together, and support people already doing international work?” she said, explaining the inspiration for the upcoming event.
Organizations at the fair are involved in work in North and South America as well as in Africa. Among those represented will be Sister Cities Essex Haiti, which has helped to build a library in the village of Deschapelles as well as supporting Hôpital Albert Schweitzer, also in Deschapelles; the Grow Hope Foundation, working in Uganda on projects from clean water to helping residents grow productive gardens; the American Friends of Kenya, which is involved with providing the African country with educational materials, books, and medical supplies; and BRAYCE, the Brazilian American Youth Cultural Exchange, which brings promising young people from the notorious favelas, the urban slums of Brazil, to Camp Hazen in Chester for leadership training and sends young Americans to work with Brazilian leadership in the favelas.
Other organizations include Chikumbuso, an organization in Ng’ombe, Zambia, that began by supporting women and children left impoverished when their partners died of AIDS. Now Chikumbuso has branched out to establish schools and other services for impoverished women and children. The organization takes its name, Chikumbuso, from the word in the local Zambian dialect for remembrance. To help raise funds for their projects, the women involved with Chikumbuso crochet string bags, which will be for sale at the Rotary event.
Days for Girls provides young women with the most basic of female supplies, washable and reusable sanitary napkins, in parts of the world where such basic feminine supplies are unavailable. The result is that girls can miss as much as two months of school, since they stay home when they get their period. Alternatively, they use anything from grass and leaves to rocks in place of basic hygienic supplies.
Well known Chester singer and guitar player Margie Warner, whose young peoples’ performances, Music with Margie, have been a local favorite for years, will underline the international flavor of the event with songs from around the world. In addition, the choir from the United Church of Chester will perform.
“This is going to be a fun-filled celebratory event where you can also gain an appreciation for all the good work people are doing,” Archer said.
The World’s Faire, sponsored by Rotary Global Collaborative
Sunday, Nov. 6 from 2 to 5 p.m. at Congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek, 55 East King’s Highway, Chester. Admission is free; For more information, email rotaryglobalbridge@gmail.com.