By Imani Tate
San Bernardino County Sun
The Mesgana Dancers perform for two reasons: to celebrate the traditional customs of their Ethiopian homeland and to raise money to support other girls’ educational dreams.
The 11-member troupe will wrap up its 16-city American summer tour with a show Sept. 13 in Ontario and one the next day at USC’s Bovard Auditorium.
The Ontario performance – at 7 p.m. in Chaffey High School’s Gardiner Spring Auditorium – will be presented by the Children of Ethiopia Education Fund and Ethiopia Reads.
Proceeds benefit COEEF – a nonprofit organization founded by former Ontario resident Norm Perdue and his wife, Ruthann – and Ethiopia Reads, a Denver-based nonprofit that gives books in Ethiopian libraries.
The girls in Mesgana, which means “gratitude” in Ethiopia’s Amharic language, are all sponsored students at private and parochial schools in Ethiopia.
The concerts are more than entertainment, said COEEF sponsors Eurydice Turk of Pomona and Charlene Dewees and Helen Whitehead, both of Rancho Cucamonga. They are testimonials that individuals can make a difference in the lives of impoverished children, the three women said.
Nearly 1,000 girls attend 23 schools in Ethiopia, thanks to sponsors in several countries who share the Perdues’ mission to provide hope through education.
“This is my second year of sponsoring twin girls Rediet and Kalkidan at Deza School IV,” said Turk. “My own son, Mathieu, is only a little older than the girls who are 7, almost 8.”
Turk is among Dewees’ co-workers at Rancho Cucamonga’s Western Group Realty who joined the COEEF bandwagon because of her “enthusiastic pom-pom waving on behalf of this group,” she said. “Also the idea of educating girls and women to make an impact on families, communities, (the) nation and even the world made sense to me.”
At Western Group, owner Mary Kruger sponsors seven girls, Crista Fanning has two, and Dewees and Bill McGee have one each. Dewees and Whitehead both pay more than the $200 tuition to improve their girls families’ living conditions.
Like his mother, young Mathieu Turk now anxiously awaits mail from his Ethiopian “sisters” and their grateful father. The Turks are committed to funding the education of Ethiopian girls through high school, “so the relationship will grow and impact both their lives and ours,” Eurydice said.
She said she wants her son to comprehend the importance of generosity and service and the Ethiopian project provides valuable lessons in both. She may go to Ethiopia and take Mathieu so they can meet Rediet and Kalkidan. She said the trip would change her life and help her son better appreciate his blessings.
Dewees and Whitehead have been friends for more than 50 years.
“I got involved because she can’t do anything without me,” Dewees said, teasing her best friend. “Seriously, she had to only tell me once and she was so excited, I believed in what she was doing. Sometimes when we speak to community groups about the girls, she gets so emotional tears run down her face.
“Watching that deep, intense reaction, I decided I wanted to share that feeling.”
Whitehead, however, wasn’t initially sure about getting involved. Her daughter, Cindy, introduced her to the Perdues and COEEF. Cindy Whitehead sponsors five girls’ education and convinced her mother to sponsor two. After Whitehead went to Ethiopia, she increased her number to four.
“When Cindy asked me to go to Ethiopia with her to meet the children we sponsored, I had cold feet at first,” Whitehead admitted. “There were nine pages of (medical) shots we had to take. She said we also might have to camp out, too, and I wasn’t too keen on that idea, either.
“I was definitely on the fence when a friend who’s done missionary work in South Africa said, `Go. It will change your life.’ I did, and it did,” she said.
Dewees, Turk and Whitehead agree the Perdues and COEEF give more than an education to the girls. Everyone on both sides is a partner in hope, health and happiness, they said.
The Perdues have been instrumental in lifting families out of poverty and keeping girls from resorting to prostitution or contracting AIDS, Whitehead said.
Dewees cited examples of the Perdues’ willingness to help and engage others in what they feel is a spiritual mission.
They brought Firtuna, a girl whose legs and feet were so severely damaged Ethiopian doctors planned to amputate them, to the U.S., Dewees said. Firtuna sat in a wheelchair at the Pomona, Ontario and Rancho Cucamonga shows last year watching her friends dance.
She lived with the Perdues for a year while undergoing corrective surgery and rehabilitative treatment by orthopedic surgeons at a hospital in Salt Lake City.
Firtuna returned home recently, literally running to greet her mother, said a teary-eyed Whitehead.
New York heart surgeons saved another girl’s life.
“She would have died in a month without the surgery in the United States,” Dewees said. “Another girl had holes in both eardrums and was losing her hearing. We brought her to Salt Lake City. Primary Children’s Medical Center agreed to do the surgery to restore her hearing.
“She’s back in Ethiopia and doing good,” she added. “And then there are all the adoptions inspired by Ruthann and Norm.
“Most of us have seen the movie `Pay It Forward.’ The Perdues are paying it forward for at least 10 years. The legacy they inspire will impact people for a lifetime,” Dewees said.
Tickets to the Mesgana show in Ontario – $16 for adults and $7 for children 12 and younger – are available at the door or by calling (909) 987-1910 or (909) 731-3133.