Posted: 10/17/06
Caledonia native working to help Liberia
By David Heiller
Argus News Editor
She grew up in Caledonia but her heart is in Liberia now.
Heather Cannon-Winkelman, a 1986 graduate of Caledonia High School, is a volunteer board member of a non-profit group called West African Children Support Network (WACSN).
The organization, which was formed in 1995, is trying to improve the lives of orphans and abandoned children in that country on the western coast of Africa.
Heather traveled there in 1998 and again in 2005. Sheís going again this November, and will stay for six months to a year.
On this trip she and several other members will try to set up a hotel business that can generate money for the group to sustain our current projects in Liberia.
Fundraising is not easy these days, given the huge natural disasters that have taken place in recent years. ìCharity fatigueî is how Heather characterized it in a telephone conversation on October 12.
Heather became interested in Liberia in 1989. Thatís when she met Maria Luyken, who had started working at Little Six Casino, now known as Mystic Lake Casino. Luyken was born and raised in Liberia, but has been a U.S. resident since 1979. She became a naturalized citizen in early 1990s.
Maria developed the vision for WACSN and enlisted the help of family and friends, including Heather, who helped establish the organization. That vision came from Mariaís personal tragedy of the loss of her own child in 1991, Heather said. The child was born with heart complications, and died near age two after a long struggle. Maria realized that her child was blessed with having the best care in world here, while at her home in Liberia children were dying unnecessarily of lack of food, clean water and basic medical care.
WACSN members scraped money together from personal resources and from some prominent people that Maria met in her job as a massage therapist.
They found some other organizations to help too, such as one called Feed My Starving Children. However, Maria and her husband, John, have been the major funders. None of the WACSN members are paid
ìItís been a lot of networking and partnerships,î Heather said.
Heather is currently a full-time student at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, majoring in legal and cultural studies. Her husband, Leo has a graphic design business and is a volunteer fire fighter for the city of Lakeville.
The upcoming trip will also help her gather information so she can come back and talk about the program and the country. She did that at the Caledonia Rotary Club in September at the invitation of long time family friend, Mary Jane Hendel of Caledonia.
WACSN has big goals, which seems appropriate because the country has big needs. They want to set up an education center, which will be ag based, but have vo-tech education also. It will serve students from age 12 to early adulthood. We will need major funding to start this project.
ìWe want to be able to give them the tools to rebuild the country,î Heather said. Liberia is a young country, because many people of the older generations have either left or died during the war.
Some of the children in their mid-teens were child soldiers. They started as young as nine, and had no choice but to take up arms and do whatever they were taught to do. ìAgain you lose your childhood,î she said. ìYou go from being a kid to something beyond what most of us that age would even comprehend.î
WACSN wants to provide the next generation the tools to be self-sufficient. ìOur goal was never to be an enabling organization,î Heather said.
Thatís why she feels the hotel business makes sense. They have a good downtown location, and there is a need for it. A portion of profits would go back into WACSN to keep sustain the feeding program and tuition free schools going.
Many challenges
There are big challenges with the venture. Not only is funding short, but there is no electricity and no running water, so they will operate with a generator and their own well and water reservoir.
Heather feels her work experience at Mystic Lake Casino will help. ìThis is just the best fit for our backgrounds, since we all have worked in the service industry. Itís something weíre willing to risk or do.î
Itís exciting work, Heather said. Being there, she feels like she is in the real world. ìIím always rewarded when Iím there.î
People are friendly, giving, and resilient despite their dilapidated living conditions, she said. Coming back home is when the shock and awe hits her, seeing all the material things we have. People have no reason to complain here, she said.
People in Liberia are self-sufficient and can fix just about anything. ìTheir own abilities have come out through survival,î Heather said. ìYouíre just amazed at what human beings can do in crisis.î
She recalls one incident on her first trip to Liberia, when she visited a place where six university students were operating a free school of abandoned or orphaned kids. The kids put on program where they sang and did skits. One student recited the Emancipation Proclamation word for word, perfectly. ìIt was just moving. It brought all of us to tears, men and women.î
And they like Americans, something that is disappearing elsewhere in the world, Heather feels.
Heather also likes the direct relationship that Liberia has with American historically. ìLiberia is an offspring of America,î she said. ìWhether people will accept that or not, thatís just the way it is.î
The country was founded in the first half of the 1800s by the American Colonization Society in the United States, which sent free blacks from the U.S. to the coast of West Africa.
The people sent to Liberia were second or third generation Americans. ìIt was a new world to them,î Heather said. Members of WACSN and many Liberianís believe Liberia should be the 51st state. ìThatís how strong our the feelings are,î she said.
Is the country safe? Heather answered that she didnít feel unsafe on either of her two previous trips. The United Nations came in 2003 and disarmed everybody, she said, and UN headquarters for all of Africa is located in the countryís capital of Monrovia. ìAnd in general the Liberians have had enough [violence],î she said.
Monrovia is a crowded city, she added. Its population of one million people is four times more than what the city should containís infrastructure can handle.
Heather is the groupís administration director. Her husband, Leo Winkelman, is the creative and safety director.
Heather wanted to be a pilot after she left Caledonia in 1986. Health problems prevented her from entering the military, so she went into the casino business.
Heather grew up on Jefferson Street in Caledonia. Her parents are Tom Cannon, Lake City, and Donna Cannon, Plymouth.
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