Contact information: 413/775-1420
Web link:

Contact: Liz Carroll
Phone: 413/775-1420
E-mail: carroll@gcc.mass.edu

Media contact: Liz Carroll
Marketing & Publications
413/775-1420 | carroll@gcc.mass.edu

Release date: September 28, 2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

GCC professor delivers keynote at regional conference on rural poverty

"So far, no scientist has claimed that poverty is in our genes or in our DNA," says Dovi Afesi, Professor of History at GCC. "Since poverty is not ordained by God, since it is not in our genes, there's no reason as far as I can see that we cannot un-do it." That's the hopeful message that Professor Afesi will deliver as to participants of the 5th Regional Conference on Rural Poverty and Social Change on Friday, October 1st at UMass., Amherst. The conference is presented by the Franklin Community Action Corporation.

Professor Afesi grew up in Ghana, West Africa. "Poverty is relative," he says. "When I was growing up, I didn't really feel that we were poor. But finances would have been a drawback to my desire to obtain higher education. I've always realized that education is good and more is better." Through the sacrifice of his parents, and the luck of being in the right place at the right time to receive a scholarship for a student exchange program, Afesi came to the United States to attend undergraduate school at Clark University in Worcester, followed by graduate studies at Michigan State University. Professor Afesi went on to teach at UMass, Amherst College and Smith College before coming to GCC.

"One of the consequences of my life journey," says Professor Afesi, "is that I have become internationalized—that is, I have become very concerned about world affairs. I feel that the lack of cultural understanding stands in the way of making a better world."

Professor Afesi shares GCC's commitment to forging opportunities for cross-cultural learning. "There's no doubt in my mind that greater multicultural understanding is a precondition for a more peaceful world. What we do here [in the United States] affects the lives of others in other parts of the world, so the more that American youths get to know about the world, the better." When he taught at UMass, Professor Afesi started a UMass/Nigerian student exchange program. "I know that the lives of some of these people were significantly changed as a result of their experience in Africa. For example, one exchange student went on to combine an interest in journalism with photography, and became a photojournalist with a focus on international issues."

The theme of the conference is Cultivating Hope, Harvesting Action, and Afesi's message to participants will be that, "If we all work hard enough to change some aspects of the economic and political system, through such efforts as this Conference, there's no reason why there should be any poverty in the United States of America."