Nomad Foundation and rotary Club of Ojai present Dave Stamey

Nomad Foundation founder Leslie Clark has long recognized similarities between her family's cattle ranching/cowboy heritage and the nomadic herders she works to help in Niger, West Africa.

 

Stamey has been a cowboy, a mule packer, a dude wrangler, and is now one of the most popular Western entertainers working today.  Seven times the Western Music Association has voted him Entertainer of the Year, six times Male Performer of the Year, and five times Songwriter of the Year; he received the Will Rogers Award from the Academy of Western Artists.

 

The proceeds from the concert will benefit the Nomad Foundation's work to bring prosperity and stability to nomads in Niger, and to help preserve their cultural traditions.  To accomplish this, the foundation - with support from Rotary Club - has built a medical clinic, boarding school and adult education center at the Tamesna Center for Nomadic Life in northern Niger.  These facilities are located on the annual migration route for all nomads in the country so they can stop by, pitch their tents, and take part in the programs or get medical care, without settling down and losing their mobile herding traditions, the basis of their economy.  Adult education programs have included solar engineering and panel fabrication, and earth-bag building, as well as midwife training conducted by Ojai retired physician and Rotarian Dr. Robert Skankey.

 

This year the Rotary Club has funded two successful programs for building peace and stability.  Terrorist activity has increased in Niger because unstable countries surround it.  The generation of young nomads heading into adult life with no education, skills or opportunity pose a distinct threat to the stability of the region.  If they have no way of earning a living at home, they may be tempted by a life of banditry, drug smuggling or terrorism.  Two Nomad Foundation programs are giving these young people opportunities at home with microcredit loans and seasonal employment to create dams and earth berms to improve pasture and control erosion.  Now anchored to their communities by these programs, these yound mend and women are staying home to build prosperity in their own communities.

 

The Dave Stamey concert raised $3100.