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 Professor inspires students to collect books for Nepal
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Posted on 04-18-07 2:54 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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- http://www.ourmidland.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18226185&BRD=2289&PAG=461&dept_id=472542&rfi=6
Professor inspires students to collect books for Nepal

Jim Johnson enjoyed seeing the Himalayas and jungles in Nepal, but the most important thing he witnessed might have been the need for books in the civil war-torn nation.

After traveling to the landlocked Asian country in March, the Auburn attorney spoke to his class at Saginaw Valley State University about the experience, inspiring some of his students to begin a book drive.


During his two weeks in Nepal, Johnson hired a political science student to guide him and act as a translator. He said the student pointed to the need for books in the country.


"Some of the greatest needs the country has are books and literacy products," Johnson said. "Little goes their way in terms of support from countries that could really make a difference."


Johnson said Nepal fascinates him because it is going through a process of creating a new government. The country has been in a state of flux for about 11 years, with a Maoist uprising challenging the monarchy's credibility.


Now the country is "a great little laboratory" for political science buffs because it is wrestling with what its constitution should look like, deciding how to structure its government and planning its first legitimate election for June, Johnson said. He hopes to make it back to Nepal to see that process.


During his time there Johnson learned about the people of Nepal, who he described as peaceful and hesitant to ask for anything. The country is mostly Hindu and part Buddhist.


"They live side by side incredibly peaceful -- something we can't even pull off in this country," he said.


It takes time to adjust back to life in the United State after experiencing other cultures.


"I've never been to one that's stuck with me to this degree," Johnson said.


Johnson's story inspired his students Kelly Salomone and Emilee Bruner, both members of Phi Sigma Sigma at SVSU, to help with a book drive for Nepal. Cassie Hare, from the Organization for Progressive Politics, also worked on organizing the collection.


"The part that touched us the most was when he told us they never once asked him for money ... they only asked for books," Salomone said.


Salomone said people can bring books to a presentation Johnson is giving at 7 p.m. Thursday at Ott Auditorium at SVSU.


"We are looking for textbooks -- new and used, any condition -- to fill their college library," she said. "But we are also taking any kind of other book donations and also monetary donations to buy more books and help pay for shipping and handling of the books to Nepal."

There also is a donation box set up at the SVSU Student Life Office, or books can be dropped off at Johnson's law office at 301 W. Midland St. in Auburn.
 
Posted on 04-18-07 2:58 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Thats nice of them....
 
Posted on 04-18-07 4:00 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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http://www.svsu.edu/clubs/vanguard/stories/1279


Please read last paragraph. I believe that is true. Nepal government gets lot of aid from EU, Japan but very little from USA. They can spend billions of dollars in war in Iraq because they can get oil from there while they dont care much about other poor countries like Nepal where they can not get any benefit from their natural resources.


by Marisa Gwidt
Vanguard News Editor
March 26, 2007 —


by Christina Dillbeck
Adjunct political science professor Jim Johnson flew to Nepal over spring break to observe the civil war that has engulfed the nation.The country of Nepal is currently in the midst of a brutal civil war in which a reported 13,000 individuals have already died. So, naturally, SVSU adjunct political science professor Jim Johnson decided to hop on a plane and spend spring break observing the politics and geography of the South Asian nation.

The Nepali king's publicly ostracized powers were relinquished last year, and an interim and factionalized legislature was appointed following a November peace agreement aimed at ending the conflict and determining the future of the constitutional monarchy.

The current legislature consists mainly of Maoists, Marxist-Leninists, and members of the Nepalese Congress. Official elections are currently scheduled for mid-June, but if they do not go forward the country will likely go entirely back to war. Smaller parties are already pulling out of the legislature and calling on their members to return to guerilla tactics.

"These people need a sense of peace," Johnson said, after adding he is not optimistic about elections occurring as soon as June. "It's been an 11-year war that has had a horrible set of consequences on the populace."

Johnson flew into Kathmandu - Nepal's capital and home to the only major international airport in the country. Prior to traveling abroad, he arranged for a Nepalese political science student to work as his personal translator. In a malaria-ridden and water-deficient country where most of the population lives on less than a dollar a day, Johnson soon discovered that $35 a day was more than enough to keep the young university student continually converting Nepalese into English.

"Pushkar came to me on the second day with tears in his eyes and asked, 'Do you know how much money this is?'" Johnson recalls. "He said, 'What you'll pay me in one week is enough to pay for all of my tuition for one year, and still have enough leftover to pay my father's salary for six months."

Johnson and Pushkar traveled north from Kathmandu to the Tibetan border and the base of the Himalayas. In a country the approximate size of Arkansas, they went from a tropical jungle atmosphere with elephants, tigers and rhinoceros, to the foot of Mount Everest in just a day's drive.

A main goal of Johnson's journey was to get a firsthand account of the country's United Nations-monitored Maoist camps. As a provision of the November peace agreement, approximately 30,000 members of the revolutionary peasant regime have been lodged in camps so that the UN can register and verify the fighters and their arms. However, Johnson was surprised to discover a lack of UN supervision in the Maoist camps.

"It's ridiculous," he said. "The UN seems to be holed up in resort hotels conducting team-building exercises or something. They were just nowhere to be found."

Without increased foreign assistance to Nepal, Johnson believes the country cannot effectively follow through with its plan to advance economically and democratically.

He says the U.S. in particular is currently lacking in any form of support to Nepal because the Nepalese do not have anything Americans want.

"If we discovered oil reserves under Kathmandu tomorrow," he explains, "I guarantee that within six weeks the Nepalese people would be wearing 20-gallon hats and riding horses. We'd be there in a big way."
 


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