– A disgrace

– Here we are, expecting Norwegians to get involved in the fight against poverty, while we don’t get up from the sofa even when we have the opportunity to help our own people. It makes me so angry, I can’t understand why, says Angelique Awa (26), leader of the African Student Union.

She had expected several of the 100 union members to volunteer as charity box collectors at this year’s charity event which had Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) as it’s beneficiary. Instead, only two people from the union turned up at Chateau Neuf on Sunday afternoon, herself included.

– I really hope that the people who didn’t volunteer at Blindern were helping out in their neighbourhoods. But I doubt it. The ones I’ve spoken to afterwards were either busy reading or working, she says.

No response

Awa feels that the members from the African Student Union should have turned up in large numbers.

– Being from Africa, I felt that not only did we have a moral obligation to do this, but also an opportunity to display our solidarity to our own people and to help in the fight against widespread diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis in Africa. But we weren’t there to display that solidarity. I think it’s a disgrace.

When she encouraged the members to volunteer as charity box collectors, the response was a deafening silence.

– I made sure to send out e-mails to all of the union members, as well as text messages to the ones I knew best. No one replied, she says, and adds that getting involved shouldn’t have been a problem.

– It takes two hours and in that time I managed to collect about a thousand kroner. Think how much it could have been if everyone who actually had a reason to be there had displayed a bit of fellowship and turned up.

Awa doesn’t want to denounce the members of the union, but is disappointed to see so little engagement.

– I may be too hard on our members, but it is sad to see that so many aren’t at all interested in helping their own. We should have been there, she says.