A feast on Saturday night at Saint Louis University’s first SAAW International Charity Gala Dinner celebrated seven days of cultural awareness and fundraising events, hosted by the South Asian Awareness Week Coordinating Committee.
The dinner, held in the Pere Marquette Gallery in Dubourg Hall, attracted about 90 guests. With a suggested donation of $10 per seat, the event collected almost $1,000 to give to Co-Operation In Development Australia, Inc., an Australian-based organization that builds primary schools in Bangladesh.
According to CO-OP’s website, about $5,000 is needed to build a primary school to serve 400 children. The organization has built 28 schools so far.
“The schools are very popular because they’re free,” said Akshar Patel, chair of SAAW and vice president of Hindu Students’ Council. “Parents . can’t afford to have their children go away, much less pay for them to go to school. [Building schools with free tuition] makes it feasible for [the children] to go.”
While Bangladesh primary schools often offer only single-sex admission, CO-OP schools offer co-education.
“They try to treat people as equally and fair as possible,” said Patel.
Guests at the Charity Gala Dinner were invited to serve themselves from a dinner buffet line of Indian, Middle Eastern and Asian dishes. Later, they watched Indian and Filipino dance performances, Indian devotional hymns sung by Aastha, SLU’s Indian a cappella group, and a traditional reading of the Qu’ran, all put on by members of the sponsoring organizations.
The Charity Gala Dinner was one of 11 events put on by the SAAW committee, the International Student Federation, Indian Students Association, Filipino Student Association, Hindu Students’ Council and the Muslim Students Association. Other events included in the week’s program were presentations on the South Asian economy and Islam in South Asia, Filipino dance lessons and student panels.
The Muslim Student Association’s Fast-A-Thon on Tuesday; Indian Gaarba, Raas and Bhangra Dance Night on Friday; and Ghandi Service Day and Charity Dinner, both on Saturday, were four of the largest events, said Patel, “and three out of four of them happened for the first time ever [at SLU] this year.”
Patel said that the gala was a sort of celebration of a week of working together.
“Here is an event that no one organization is putting on . we’re putting it on for these poor children in Bangladesh . and we’re putting it on together,” Patel said. He said that “next year and for years to come we hope to get bigger and better . with more people involved.”
