March 21, 2018 The Skanner Seattle Page 3
News
Boko Haram
We were freed because we
are Muslim girls and they
didn’t want us to suffer. That
is why they released us
possible to independent-
ly verify her claim.
The abductions in Dap-
chi have evoked painful
memories of the trage-
dy in Chibok, where 276
girls were kidnapped
from their boarding
school.
Nearly four years later,
about 100 of them have
never returned home.
Many had been forced to
marry their captors and
had children fathered by
them.
The Nigerian govern-
ment denied that it had
paid a ransom in ex-
change for the girls’ free-
dom.
The girls were released
“through
back-chan-
nel efforts and with the
help of some friends of
the country, and it was
unconditional,”
Infor-
mation Minister Lai Mo-
hammed told journalists
in the capital of Abuja.
“No money changed
hands. They only had
one condition — that
they will return them to
where they took them.
So in the early hours of
today, they did return the
girls and most of them
went to their parents,” he
said.
The girls were meet-
ing with counselors at
Meyer
ing, resident Ba’ana
Musa told the AP.
“We did it out of pity.
And don’t ever put your
daughters in school
again,” the residents said
the extremists told them.
Boko
Haram
means
“Western education is
forbidden” in the Hausa
language.
Nigeria’s government
said 101 of the 110 school-
girls had been confirmed
freed and that the num-
ber “would be updated
after the remaining ones
have been documented.”
The latest mass abduc-
tion is thought to have
been carried out by a
Boko Haram splinter
group aligned with the
Islamic State group that
has criticized the leader
of the main Boko Haram
organization for target-
ing civilians and has fo-
cused instead on military
and Western targets.
The release came a day
after an Amnesty Inter-
national report accused
the Nigerian military of
failing to heed several
warnings of an immi-
nent attack on Feb. 19
during which the girls
were seized.
The military has called
the report an “outright
falsehood.”
March For Our Lives Town Hall
Congresswoman Pramilla Jayapal met March 17 at the Quincy Jones Auditorium, Garfield High School with local student organizers for
March For Our Lives, the youth-led national day of action against gun violence scheduled for March 24. The congresswoman and some
of the students held a community town hall to discuss the movement to end gun violence after their meeting.
Art
cont’d from pg 1
racial oppression in its North and
Northeast neighborhoods.
Running from April to June, the
residency will select three artists
— one per month – from any dis-
cipline to create works around
re-establishing a community in
the aftermath of gentrification.
Participants will be provided
with a stipend and have access to
a network of resources.
Not specific to one location,
however, the residency will al-
low artists the flexibility to create
pieces throughout the city, from
inner Northeast Portland to re-
gions where gentrification has
displaced residents to.
“You don’t have to prove to us
that you were forced out,” said
‘Art Saved My Life’ organizer
Donovan Smith. “’Gentrification’
is a word we use for an experi-
ence that’s been continuing in
Portland for a long time, so we
just want to make sure that Black
and Brown folks from our com-
munity are first in line for these
resources.” Priority will be given
to those artists from North and
Northeast Portland with ances-
tral ties to the neighborhood.
During their month-long resi-
dency, artists will also have the
opportunity to host free, all-ages
events to showcase their work,
“
beneath the surface that can only
be healed through community
and fellowship. That’s the lifeline
we’re trying to create with ‘Art
Saved My Life.’”
The artist residency is a part-
nership between local organiza-
Priority will be given to those artists
from North and Northeast Portland
with ancestral ties to the neighborhood
as well as hold discussions and
workshops on how art can help
heal a community.
“The whole premise of heal-
ing is rooted in the fact that our
community has a lack of resourc-
es and opportunities, and that
comes with a lot of trauma,” said
Janessa Narciso of Deep Under
Ground (DUG), an artistic plat-
form and partner organization
of the residency. “When we think
about ‘healing,’ we want to be
able to dig deep into the logis-
tical obstacles that stand in an
artist’s way, but also the things
tions YBG Portland, Deep Under
Ground, Friends of Noise and
Gentrification is Weird, with
funding through a Community
Placemaking grant from Oregon
Metro.
Candidates must be 18 years or
older and be of African, African
American, Asian, Asian Amer-
ican, Black, Chicano, Hispanic,
Indian, Latino, or Native Ameri-
can descent. Participants will be
selected on a rolling basis.
For further information, art-
ists can contact the organizers at
artsavedmylifepdx@gmail.com.
cont’d from pg 1
tributor to the neighborhood?” Hallová
said.
Stamm said the organization has
reached out to community partners
representing organizations in the
neighborhood — including Self En-
hancement Inc., Portland Community
Reinvestment Initiatives and the Urban
League – to talk about ways to develop
the space so it benefits the neighbor-
hood. For example, Stamm said officials
floated the idea of having a “convening
space” available for community meet-
ings, but said the organization won’t do
it if it takes business away from other
facilities.
Stamm also wants the new building to
blend with some of the older buildings
in the Albina neighborhood, which was
initially developed in the 1910s and
1920s but has, in the last five to 10 years,
undergone a wave of new construction.
He doesn’t want the finished product to
be more than three stories tall, and said
some of the preliminary drawings even
have residential-style gables.
“When Doug reached out to me to
talk about this, I said, ‘I think this is
phenomenal, but make sure that folks
understand a few things. You could
have gone anywhere. You chose to
“
Stamm and others
stressed the impor-
tance of developing
a site that wouldn’t
displace anyone
from their homes
come here. There’s plenty of space in
the Pearl and they would have been just
as happy to have you continue to stay
resident there,’” said Michael Alexan-
der, who has served as a volunteer com-
munity liaison and advisor for Meyer
on the project. “But I believe that the
decision that’s made here is because the
work that gets done here is important
to the foundation -- being able not only
to support the work but to become an
institutional partner in that work was
important.”
Hallová said Meyer has also reached
out to the National Association of Mi-
nority Contractors and Portland’s Met-
ropolitan Contractor Improvement
Partnership with the intention of en-
gaging minority-owned contractors on
the project.
According to Stamm, Sergeant will
remain on the lot until this fall, and
construction will run through 20119.
Meyer spokesperson Kimberly A.C.
Wilson, said the total budget for the
project has not been set since the orga-
nization has not settled on a design.
Stamm said the purchase and reloca-
tion is also part of an “equity journey”
Meyer embarked on five to seven years
ago. The organization’s board of trust-
ees, staff and leadership team are now
predominantly people of color. Meyer
PHOTO BY BERNIE FOSTER
“
a nearby hospital, and
“will be quarantined and
be counseled before they
go back to their schools,”
he added.
The fighters had rolled
into Dapchi in nine ve-
hicles and the girls were
left in the center of town.
As terrified residents
emerged from their
homes, the extremists
issued an ominous warn-
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
ed for.
The sister of one of the
girls still being held cap-
tive fainted Wednesday
upon hearing news that
she was not among those
freed.
One 14-year-old re-
leased by the fighters
told reporters that five
girls had died. She did not
provide other details and
it was not immediately
cont’d from pg 1
Doug Stamm, Meyer Memorial Trust’s retiring CEO,
and communications director Kimberly A.C. Wilson
have announced the foundation’s purchase of a
property in North Portland.
has also selected an African American
woman to succeed Stamm--Michelle
DePass, who most recently served as
the New School’s Milano School of In-
ternational Affairs, Management, and
Urban Policy in New York City, takes
the helm of the organization April 30.