By Rebecca Andrews
Staff Writer
Published April 9, 2008

Typically, middle school students are interested in the latest video games and hanging out with their friends. But for a group of students in Tenafly, they’re more interested in spending their time attending meetings before and after school to help build a school – 7,066 miles away.

Mark Hyman, Tenafly Middle School teacher and founder of Global Care Unlimited (GCU), a nonprofit educational and humanitarian organization, has overseen a group of students and their hopes of raising enough money to build a school through the Ethiopian School Construction Initiative. The initiative aims to build a 12-room school for 1,000 kindergarten through 10th grade students in the small, rural town of Awassa, Ethiopia where the average family income is $2 per day.

Through months of research and debate, the students of GCU decided upon the construction initiative and it was launched in November 2007. GCU has partnered with Yohannes Gebregeorgis, founder of the Ethio-American Friendship School and the nonprofit organization aimed at creating a culture of reading, "Ethiopia Reads," to bring the hope of an education to the children in Ethiopia. "These kids are every bit as capable as you and I are," said Hyman to the GCU students during one of their meetings before school. "They just don’t have the resources to get it done."

In order to achieve their goal, they decided to host an African Festival and silent auction in hopes that members of the community would accept their "Gebzha" or "invitation to feast" in the official Ethiopian language, Amharic. The event took place on Friday, March 28 where guests were invited to have their faces painted, enjoy a performance by the Universal African Dance and Drum Ensemble and even snack on some Ethiopian foods. In addition, a silent auction was held, which included a Superbowl XLII football signed by Jeremy Shockey and Gibril Wilson, a three-month gym membership and a romantic New York City weekend getaway.

Nearly 700 people attended the Gebzha festival and approximately $16,000 was raised in a mere three-and-a-half hours. The GCU has raised $24,500 to date and hopes to earn an additional $5,000 by June and $10,000 from the support of the Demarest GCU and their carnival to be held in late May – all of which meets their originally planned goals. They need to raise $60,000 to build the entire school and they hope to have that goal met in the fall.

Seventh grader Brett Sherman enjoys being part of the GCU because he likes helping others. "You get a good feeling when you help out with something like this," he said. "You’re actually helping with a concrete idea – people are amazed."

Part of that amazement lies in Hyman who refers to the students as "heroes of conscience" for their hard work and dedication to the initiative. "At that age, to have that sort of commitment, sensitivity and awareness is extraordinary and I’m proud to be facilitator in the process."

Seventh grader Jordan Meisel hopes to spread the word about GCU to other students who will hopefully join in the future. "It’s like the fairy tale where the father teaches his daughter to stand up for herself," she said. She explained that the father shows his daughter how easily a stick will break when it’s alone but when a bunch of sticks are together, it’s a lot harder to break them. "It shows how much stronger people are together and how much more of a difference we can make together."