Observer the
The Independent Newspaper Serving Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s Volume 44 : Issue 66
Wednesday, DECEMber 9, 2009
ndsmcobserver.com
Eyes on Africa Foundation makes progress Notre Dame-founded program raises more than $100,000, helps provide HIV testing in Africa and looks forward to future By AMANDA GRAY News Writer
The Eyes on Africa Foundation (EOAF) is bringing into focus its goal of helping the troubled continent by raising donations and starting several new projects, founder and Notre Dame senior Jeff Lakusta said. “ N o w, w e ’ v e r a i s e d m o r e than $100,000 and taken several groups of volunteers to Africa,” Lakusta said. “We’ll have another trip this summer, and anyone is invited. Volunteers need to pay their own way — so we don’t take donors money to pay for people’s trips — and it’s a lifechanging experience.” Last y e a r t h e F o u n d a t i o n helped to provide an HIV testing vehicle to the area outside Cape Town, South Africa. A car dealer donated the vehicle and EOAF helped to renovate it. Etafeni, a communitybased care center for AIDS,
ND’s ‘only’ Orthodox Jew shares experience By SARA FELSENSTEIN News Writer
Senior Damian Sharratt is the only Orthodox Jew in Notre Dame’s undergraduate student body and the first in the University’s history to request a kosher meal plan. Sharratt has had this meal plan for two and a half years. “Notre Dame said you have to buy a meal plan if you live on campus. I explained [the situation] to Food Services … I put them in contact with the former rabbi of the community and he hooked it all up that the guy who cooked for the Yeshiva [an all male Jewish high school in South Bend] would send over meals once a week and they would freeze them and put them in a fridge in South Dining Hall.” Sharratt is a double major in mechanical engineering and industrial design. He said the main reason he came to Notre Dame is the University’s high academic
see ORTHODOX/page 4
INSIDE
TODAY’S PAPER
Photo courtesy of Jeff Lakusta
Notre Dame senior Nellie Cunnigham and University of Texas senior Brooke Barber break for a picture while playing with children on a playground at a school in South Africa. led a team of nurses who administered the tests. “Basically, that meant they took their needles and testing supplies in coolers, with tents on their back, and tested anyone who walked by,” Lakusta
said. “The problems were both evident and more intricate — not many people are willing to get tested so overtl y, b e c a u s e o f t h e s t i g m a associated with the disease. But there were also sanitation
problems, privacy issues, safety concerns, and simple weather and timing constraints. “When EOAF returned this past summer, we got the data from our caravan and learned
that we’d raised the amount of people being tested by over 700 percent.” Following a trip to Africa to study AID S prevention a nd the stigma associated with the disease, Lakusta founded Eyes on Africa the summer after his freshman year. “There are some really crazy stories of people coming out of the woodwork to help out, and that’s what it’s all about,” he said. “The real purpose of Eyes on Africa is not only to support organizations in Africa, but to show people that making a differe n c e i s n ’t a s h a r d a s i t seems.” The organization is also raising funds to provide jobs f o r H I V- p o s i t i v e w o m e n b y building a group based on the Etafeni organization, Lakusta said. “It’s a great, communitybased model we think is a unique solution to some of the
see AFRICA/page 3
Students fill out CIFs at higher rate By SAM STRYKER News Writer
Students have been filling out their Course Instructor Feedback (CIF) forms at a higher rate this year, according to University vice president and associate provost professor Dennis Jacobs. “They are well above where they were last year,” he said. “It’s rolling in as we speak.” As of Tuesday evening, 58 percent of students had filled
COUNCIL
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out their CIF forms. That compares to roughly 40 percent at this period last year, Jacobs said. In total, only 58 percent of CIF forms were filled out last semester. Jacobs said students the system reminds students three days by e-mail until they complete their forms. The deadline is midnight Sunday. Jacobs said the CIF system is important for evaluating
see CIF/page 4
SOIFIA ITURBE I Observer Graphic
REPRESENTATIVES
Members discuss results of Transpo debut By ANN-MARIE WOODS News Writer
TOM LA/The Observer
Student body vice president Cynthia Weber and president Grant Schmidt discussed Transpo at the COR meeting Tuesday.
Following the opening weekend of the new Transpo bus route, the Council of Representatives (COR) discussed student responses to the initiative and potential improvements for the future. “In my opinion it went very, very well,” student body president Grant Schmidt said. “It accomplished everything we wanted it to.” Schmidt and student body vice president Cynthia Weber began working on the new bus
route as a way to provide students with safe, convenient and free transportation off campus on the weekends. COR members agreed that Transpo was a success, with generally positive feedback and no incidents to report. “It’s supposed to be fun,” Schmidt said. “Obviously we have to be responsible, but the point is it got everyone home safely.” However, COR members agreed on the need for more education about the route and the timetable for pick-up and
see COR/page 6
College strives to improve food services page 3 ◆ A male perspective on ‘Twilight’ page 10 ◆ Men’s basketball win streak page 20 ◆ Viewpoint page 8