Tickets are on sale after school this week for the Dakar Women's Group's annual Festival of Taste, a delicious tour of the world's cuisines as interpreted by DWG members, who represent some 50-plus countries this year. If you don't come to campus in the afternoons, call Dorothea Winterhof, who can direct you to the nearest person selling tickets, at 77 182 2095.

 

The Festival of Taste is this Friday night, Jan. 20, at Le Meridien President, beginning at 8 p.m. Tickets for this charity fundraiser are 20,000 cfa, but can be had for less if you are a DWG member or bring a dish to share. Dishes can represent the country you're from, or somewhere you've lived. It's broken down by continents -- North America, Europe, South America, Asia, Africa. We'll have music and a fantastic tombola with prizes from local restaurants and hotels, artists, and Emirates Airlines.

 

The Charity Committee of DWG will distribute some 26 million cfa worth of grants this year, focusing on disadvantaged women and children. We buy books and construction materials for schools in some of the poorest parts of Dakar. We fund groups of women who have come together to mill cereal or make juices from local fruits and vegetables and need help to buy their equipment. We buy sewing machines for programs that train young girls and boys for an occupation. Repairs to a bus that picks up blind children to take them to a special school. A gardening program for mentally retarded children and adults. Last year, we helped a group of young men buy a horse and cart so they could start a garbage pickup service in their neighborhood. The maximum we give to any one applicant is 1.5 million cfa. Our smallest grant this year is 200,000 for art therapy for psychiatric patients. The amounts are small, but the impact the money has is large.

 

Come! Enjoy an evening out, with good food and company, and know that your money will be well spent.

Thank you,

The DWG Charity Committee