Talk focuses on Liberia’s issues
Rebuilding Liberia as the country emerges from civil war and overcoming economic and political issues were the focus Thursday night of the final panel in a three-part series addressing the current condition of the country.
The panel featured Federation of Liberian Community Associations of Massachusetts President Richard Saydee, Northeastern University professor Bleidi Stemn and College of Arts and Sciences professor John Harris.
“There isn’t anyone here who thinks reconstruction will be a simple plan,” Harris said.
Harris, an economics professor, spoke about the economic state of the nation, noting that Liberia must begin its road to recovery by establishing law and order. Security is the key to generating incentives for citizens to produce goods with Liberia’s vast timber and rubber supplies, which would be used to build a technology industry, he said.
Saydee said improving the Liberian education system would enrich the nation. He spotlighted the nation’s 5 percent literacy rate and added that an educated population would best uphold a democratic system.
Stemn focused on the “resettlement of refugees” who left the country to learn different trades. Stemn outlined how expatriates have the ability to aid the broken nation and how the process of reconstruction would be drawn out without their help.
-Anita Davis
Panel kicks off awareness week
A group of eating disorder experts and others who have been through the issue talked about their experiences and gave information about disorders during a panel discussion Tuesday night, organized Boston University’s chapter of the Red Cross.
The panel was comprised of Massachusetts Eating Disorder Association representative Sandy Clemmer, Cambridge Eating Disorder Unit Director Seda Ebrahimi, College of Arts and Sciences senior Cheryl Horney and Harvard Medical School professor Karen Miller, a practicing physician. The panel was assembled in honor of National Eating Disorder Week.
Both Clemmer and Horney shared personal stories about their struggles with anorexia.
“Achieving a perfect body was another way to convince myself that I was perfect,” Clemmer said. “My eating disorder was a way of being in control.”
Horney said she struggled with anorexia throughout high school and that she only began to recover when she saw her sister begin to show signs of an eating disorder as well.
“The thing that helped make me better was saving the person that I cared the most about,” she said.
Ebrahimi discussed the different types of eating disorders and Miller outlined physical complications associated with anorexia and bulimia.
-Merrill Knox
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