The fundraising walk from Calgary to Edmonton begins Thursday.
Thursday, August 04, 2011
Members of Madina Abdi’s family will begin walking from Calgary to the City of Champions Thursday evening in an effort to raise funds for Oxfam’s East African Drought Fund.
“Our walk pales in comparison to the walks these women and children are facing, but we feel it’s the only way to properly represent the unique nature of what they’re facing,” said Abdi, a student at the University of Calgary.
Her father, a Somali immigrant, brought over 17 relatives in 1993 to help them escape a brutal civil war there.
“We’ve dealt with the hardships first-hand,” she said.
Seven cousins from the same family have worked to raise $10,000, with 100% of the proceeds going to Somalia relief efforts, Abdi said.
Abdi’s cousin Nasra was three when she came to Alberta from Somalia. In a family of seven children, all of the children are attending or have graduated from university.
They see the opportunities they have been given in their adoptive homeland and the strife plaguing their native homeland, and they want to help, said Siad, a Mount Royal College nursing student.
“As Canadians, we’re so privileged, and we tend to ignore issues around us. This walk is just to remind people that we can make a difference and we can make a change and we just need to work together,” she said.
“Those women walk for 35 days with no food and water. Half their children die on the way to the refugee camps. Our walk is considered a luxury ... really this is nothing,” she said.