Student Advocates for Indigenous People

Last year in World Cultures class, Aaron Kohn was inspired. The lifestyle of the indigenous peoples known as the Bushmen, in the 1984 movie The Gods Must Be Crazy was popular, but inaccurate in its portrayal of the Bushmen`s lifestyle. They are actually going through a cultural genocide. The San people are the oldest human culture in existence. The Human Genome project discovered a San woman in the ancestry of each one of us, as far back as 200,000 years. Now there are only 90,000 San people left, down from millions. In many places, they have been forced into settlements, away from their home in the Kalahari Desert, without food, water, employment, or education to teach them skills to survive in a modern society. Last April, Aaron invited America`s experts on the San people to Hawken School for a conference. It ended up being the largest conference ever for the Kalahari Peoples Fund (501c3), the largest turnout (with over 100 people), the most successful fundraiser, and most press coverage (local and national). This October two San people from their settlements in Namibia will visit the United States. They will be making a stop in Cleveland for a forum hosted by Hawken School, once again in support of the Kalahari Peoples Fund`s efforts to help the San culture. Along with the San will be Dr. Megan Biesele, the Director of Kalahari Peoples Fund, from Austin Texas; Dr. Robert Hitchcock, the Head of African Studies at University of Nebraska, and Catherine Collett, an expert on the San people`s language and assistant to Kalahari Peoples Fund. On the morning of October 19th, the Hawken Upper School community will meet with these scholars to discuss history, language, stories and rituals. The public will be invited to a similar forum, moderated by Sam Fulwood III at John Carroll University later that evening. The San people have lived for a long time with little conflict or dissent. Their environmental, political, and social skills are lessons for us all. Help is critical, because the Bushmen could be gone in just a few years, and their heritage will vanish. The forum will be a chance to explore the truth about the San culture. The Cleveland and Hawken communities will learn first-hand about the oldest human culture in the world. This is a unique opportunity to make a direct global connection with a culture that needs help now. View the event details here. Visit Aaron`s Truth Campaign website here.