“New Nile Orchestra plays Burnham Hall to Benefit Ethiopian Youth Organization”
LINCOLN: On Saturday, June 14, Burnham Hall in Lincoln will host New Nile Orchestra for a night of “New England’s Finest Ethiopian Funk.” The band is playing to benefit Action for Youth and Community Change (AYCC), an NGO run by and for Ethiopian youth in Awassa, Ethiopia. Teachers from Addison County schools who recently visited Awassa as part of the Vermont/Ethiopia teacher exchange are hosting and cooking authentic Ethiopian cuisine for the event.
New Nile Orchestra have been performing their high-energy brand of world music for more than 20 years across New England. Singer/dancer Kiflu Kidane and his band create infectious rhythms that, combined with Kidane’s remarkable dancing and singing, inspire even the most committed wall flower to get up and dance. New Nile Orchestra will also be playing the Discover Jazz Festival in Burlington this month.
Action for Youth and Community Change helped to host the Vermont teachers who visited Ethiopia this past February. The youth-led organization, founded by members of One Love AIDS/HIV Awareness Theater, provides what is rare in Ethiopia: a safe place where youth from all social strata, tribes and religions can come together and engage in positive out-of-school activities. Their programs foster self-reliance, discipline, kindness and creativity, and include theater, aikido, gymnastics, dance, music, basketball, visual arts, the Long Live the Girls writing project, AIDS education, homework help, conflict resolution & social support.
This past February, five Vermont teachers-–Elaine Pentaleri of Vergennes Union Elementary, Stacy Carter and Barbara Yerrick of Monkton Elementary, and Matt Schlein and Becky Dowdy of the Walden Project & Vergennes Union HS-–traveled to Awassa, Ethiopia as part of a course offered in conjunction with Castleton State College, the Vermont Folklife Center, the Willowell Foundation and AYCC. The two year course, “Vermont to Ethiopia and Back: Integrating Stories, Culture and Place in the Public Schools of Ethiopia and Vermont,” will develop multi-year relationships between schools in the USA and Ethiopia in the form of alternating teacher exchanges. Several teachers from Awassa will travel to Vermont in 2015 to spend two weeks with their teaching partners in classrooms.
Tickets to the Ethiopian Boogie Benefit with New Nile Orchestra are $20 for adults, $10 for students and AmeriCorps members, and free for kids under 10. A cash bar and Ethiopian food will be available. Doors open at 6 PM on June 14. For more information and to RSVP, please visit www.willowell.org or email info@willowell.org
Feb 6, 2025, 6:30 to 9 PM
Exploring Vermont Town Meeting and CommunityFeb 6, 2025, 6:30 to 7:30 PM
Exploring Climate Change in VermontFeb 6, 2025, 7 to 8:30 PM