International Affairs
2007-2008

March 8, 2008: The "Centerpiece" of the 2007-2008 program presented by the  International Affairs Committee
was the Annual International Women's Day at Hollins University.

Dr. Pauline Kaldas, Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Hollins,  read from her book "Letters from Cairo."  She was joined by her two daughters, Yasmine, left, and Celine, right.

Special guests of the branch were members of Hollins Horizon group of "non-traditional" women students. Below, Ethel Born, International Affairs Chair, thanks Kaldas for her presentation.  Afterward she autographed copies of her book

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Roanoke Valley's United Nations 101 discussion at Ethel Born's on December 1 included a few genuine mostly All American natives of other countries: From left facing the camera, Theresa  Chun (Korea). Bhadra Gunesekera and daughter Minoka (Sri Lanka), Frances Lee from Taiwan, who was a guest at the meeting, Inez Goode, originally from West Germany, and Adria Casey, a native of Cuba and a member and sometime chairman of a permanent observer organization at the Committee of Experts on the Transportation of Dangerous Goods of the UN Economic and Social Council.

Above left: These three little girls in blue represented three nations...Branch President Kay Koehler, Egypt; Ethel Born, International Affairs Chair, in a handmade dress from South Africa, and Jennie Sue Murdock, member of the IR Committee, Honduras.  Right: Carmen Garrido, native of Spain, with Maryette McLaren and Diana Goodhart shopping the "United Nations Boutique", below:

The sale of donated items from many countries raised enough money to finance schooling for 30 Afghani girls at the school establsihed by Greg Mortensen, whose book, Three Cups of Tea, we had studied last year.  If you are interested in assisting Mortensen's Central Asia Institute, visit their website: http://www.ikat.org/.