Indianapolis Cultural Diversity Drum Circle performs Sunday at Butler
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Butler University students are sticking to a beat to make life better for girls and women and Uganda.
Butler students and members of the Indianapolis Cultural Diversity Drum Circle will perform Sunday from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the Reilly Room in Atherton Union on the Butler campus.
The event will help raise money to help get girls and young women in Uganda into boarding schools where they can continue their educations, according to Gordon Mendenhall, a member of the drum circle and an associate professor at the University of Indianapolis.
“The passage of young women in Africa is a very challenging one and many of [their] cultural practices depress the opportunities for women, and, in some cases, put them in real servitude,” Mendenhall said.
Butler students will have an opportunity during the event to show what they’ve learned about other cultures through drumming and dance, according to Hanako Gavia, assistant director at the Butler Center for Citizenship and Community.
“The students really have a good time at the cultural diversity drum circle. It’s a way for them to get back to the community and also learn from the community,” Gavia said. “They also learn more about the girls in Uganda, and education, and how that’s really opening doors for them to kind of take control of their own lives and even change their own community.”
The event is free, but donations to help with tuition costs for Ugandan girls sponsored through Shifting Ideas Through Education for African Women are encouraged.