Issue Dinner: Freshman Experience

So every incoming freshman has certain requirements and activities they need to do, it's all a part of the Coe experience.  I got to check one of these items off this week when I attended my Issue Dinner.  An Issue Dinner is where Coe brings a speaker in and instead of eating in the cafeteria, we eat in the Lynch Room (located right next to the cafeteria) and listen to the speaker.  After the speaker is done, we discuss the issues the speaker brought up with our table mates.  For my Issue Dinner, I listened to Momodu Kamava an African refugee.  He shared his experience in Sierra Leone and his journey with his family to the United States.  A few weeks ago, Momodu became an official US citizen and he shared his excitement with us.  The biggest thing he stressed with citizenship is our right to vote; he told us how we take our right to vote very much for granted.  We think our one little vote won't make a difference but Momodu tried to tell us that our vote does make a difference because a lot of little votes add up to one very big change.  He was so excited to vote, he couldn't help from screaming his happiness to us.  Momodu hopes to go back to Sierra Leone because he wants to make a difference and feels his experiences and time spent living in the US will help him do that.  He is already trying to make a difference while he is still in the US by starting his own book collection.  One of the biggest problems in Sierra Leone is illiteracy and Momodu is gathering used books and sending them to Sierra Leone as a way to try to begin to tackle this problem.  Overall I thought he was a wonderful speaker.  I learned more about Sierra Leone and how difficult it was for their citizens to escape to the US while their civil war raged on.  I loved Momodu's spirit, he was full of life and optimism for the future.  He was strong in his beliefs and I believe he will end up back in Sierra Leone, ready to make a difference.