Esther's Echo at the Las Vegas Star Trek Convention

Hello Echoers!

The time has come! I’m currently at the Las Vegas Star Trek convention called the “56 Year Mission” celebrating the 56th anniversary of Trek.

Star Trek inspired me with its depiction of a bright future for our planet. In Star Trek we learned to live in harmony with the planet’s biosphere. We eliminated war, poverty, and hunger.

Esther’s Echo is a natural evolution of that inspiration. I wanted to help make the world a better place. I wasn’t sure how until I met Esther when I was working for another organization. Esther is a community leader who understands the struggles of Sierra Leone and its people so clearly. I thought about how much funding had been spent to put me, one foreign aid worker, in the field for a year and what that funding could have accomplished if given directly to Esther’s school - The Women in Action Development Project. The resources spent to put me in the field could have graduated 50 young women.

Esther has the expertise, but I thought perhaps I could help echo her work to new audiences. And one audience I know very well is Trekkies. There is huge social capital in the science-fiction / Star Trek fandom. What if we could engage that community to effect real-world social change? This meeting of worlds has always been a dream of mine. Star Trek helped inspire Esther’s Echo and now I get to introduce Esther’s Echo to Star Trek.

Today at 2pm PST - I’ll be on the “Roddenberry Stage” at the Star Trek convention to talk about “Trektivism” - fandom for social change. I’ll be joined by Star Trek actor Chase Masterson who founded an organization called the Pop Culture Hero Coalition as well as Star Trek actor John Billingsley who is on the board of the Hollywood Food Coalition. Each of us will be sharing how the fandom can help support our causes.

We’ve also launched a Star Trek community fundraiser that, even if you’re not a Star Trek fan, you can contribute to! Like all our fundraisers, 100% of the proceeds go directly to the Women in Action Development Project. We just hit the $4000 dollar mark! We need 10k in total.

You can find the link to the fundraiser here

Send good vibes my way at 2pm, everybody! And if you’re here at the convention, be sure to come to the talk! Look at this beautiful stage!

Roddenberry Interactive Stage

2022 Graduation and More "Trektivism"

Hello Echoers!

We've had a busy Spring and I have some exciting news for the Summer as well.

Spring first:

Because of all of your support, another class of students graduated from the Women in Action Development Project. I love seeing graduation videos and knowing that we all helped to make this happen. Esther sent me videos of this year's graduation ceremony. I have included some below with an additional video from Esther that we used at a special awareness raising event in Chicago this past April. More on Chicago in a moment, but first I really just wanted to say thank you all so much again for another successful year which included the "4000 for 40" fundraiser for my 40th birthday in August 2021. I was overwhelmed by the generosity of your donations. I often feel I cannot thank you all enough.

What was going on in Chicago? Mission Chicago is a Star Trek convention I attended to host a panel discussion called "Trektivism”an in-person version of the virtual panel I hosted last January mentioned in a previous blog update. As some of you likely already know, my other life is in science education where I work at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre Planetarium and the Trottier Observatory here in Vancouver. Science Fiction has been a huge inspiration in my life. Shows like Star Trek depicted a brighter future of equity, justice, and where humanity's needs were met allowing us to thrive.

​The Mission Chicago Trektivism Panel Poster

Many fans of Star Trek attribute the show as to why they pursued sciences/engineering and indeed the show inspired my love of science and science education – but I also felt inspired to make this world seem more like that bright future. Esther's Echo is my way of contributing. While Esther's Echo itself has no direct connection to science fiction, I believe I can engage the science fiction community in supporting social causes such as ours. The "Trektivism" panel is a way to engage that community. The term “Trektivism” itself was coined by the TrekGeeks podcast network where I host a podcast and have been able to help champion the “Trektivism” cause, encouraging sci-fi fans to focus their fandom toward real-world social change.

At the panel in Chicago, I was joined by several Star Trek actors and fans on stage who have all championed various social causes. I showcased Esther's Women in Action school with a video of her explaining the program and the most recent graduation ceremony (note that graduating classes are named after their start year rather than their graduating year in Sierra Leone).

Trektivism Panel Selfie! L to R Noah Averbach-Katz, Chase Masterson, Randy Frank, Me (Matthew Cimone), Heather Rae, Jen Usellis, 

​I'll be speaking about Esther's Echo again in Las Vegas this month at another Star Trek convention. This time we'll also be running an online fundraiser to coincide with the talk beginning this week and culminating at the convention itself. We will keep you all posted on fundraiser and of course would be sincerely grateful for any donations.

Thank you all so much again for your support of Esther's vision and for helping people thrive in one of the most difficult places in the world to live. Here is that graduation video!

And here is the original virtual Trektivism Panel I hosted if you want to check it out!

And check out my friend’s organizations/projects featured at the “Trektivism” panel as well!

Noah Averback-Katz and T1 International supporting Insulin Access

Chase Masterson’s Pop Culture Hero Coalition an anti-bullying organization

Randy Frank with Lambda Quadrant promoting Queer representation in the Geek Space

Jen Usellis the Klingon Pop Warrior

Heather Rae’s project “Fans Give Back”

Happy Birthday, Esther!!

Quick update to wish the founder of the Women in Action Development Project, Esther Kanu, a wonderful birthday.

Few people have changed my life as Esther has. Esther’s efforts showed me that a recovering nation had hope, the power of local community organizations, and the effectiveness of those organizations over some even far more well funded international organizations.

I’m very glad that Esther is in the world - the impact she’s had - and so are hundreds of students who have graduated from now both Women in Action Development Program schools.

Speaking of impact, lots of updates to come about this year’s graduation, and my representing Esther’s Echo at a science fiction convention in Chicago. Why sci-fi? You’ll see!

If you’d like to send a personal birthday note along, please do! That would be amazing! You can send it to matthew@esthersecho.org and I’ll ensure your message finds its way! A birthday donation would also be greatly appreciated as well. We’ll be starting our big fundraising push in a few weeks in anticipation of the start of the Fall school year so keep an eye out for that!

Wishing Esther a wonderful day.

-Matthew

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International Women's Day 2022

It’s International Women’s Day 2022!

IWD is “a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women's equality.”

This year’s IWD theme is #BreaktheBias in which the campaign encourages people to imagine a gender equal world, free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination.

The theme this year resonates for me with respect to our own slogan “Telling a different story of Africa” and the bias inherent to how we describe the global south - Africa itself is often described as continent needing “salvation”.

When I met Esther, she didn’t need salvation, neither did the women that she was supporting with the Women in Action Development Project - her school for women and girls established during the Sierra Leone Blood Diamond civil war. She needed resources. She already knew the way forward out of this conflict and to rebuilding - education, community, love. There is a reason staff and students refer to Esther as “Auntie” and a reason why the Sierra Leonean government called up on Esther and Women in Action to be a key partner in the country’s DDR (Disarmament, demobilization, rehabilitation) program in the years to follow the war.

We are Esther’s Echo, literally because this is Esther’s vision, project, mission, passion. We echo her work into the world to help channel resources to places she may not have reach. This is our way to help Break the Bias.

-Matthew

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Esther Speaking at the 2021 Graduation Ceremony

Students at the Women in Action Development Program in Freetown

Pictures from Women in Action Day!

Hello Echoers!

Just a quick update to say that I was sent photos from Women in Action day this past February 14th. Some below featuring a cake cutting celebration and a shot of the students at the celebration.

In celebration of the anniversary of the opening of the Women in Action Development Program, we’re running a fundraiser on both Facebook and through the website to help cover teacher stipends at the new WinA location in the rural Port Loko community. We’re only at $350 of the $1,500 we’re hoping for so any little bit helps!

Thank you for your continued support!

-Matthew

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