The UNM Nutrition Club will be selling Nigerian food on campus Friday to raise money to help rebuild an African village where nutrition and biochemistry students have studied during the past 10 years.
The food will be sold between Johnson Center and Popejoy Hall from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and all proceeds will go to the Fulani village in Nigeria.
"Recently, the village was burned down, and two of the main chiefs were killed," Nutrition Club President Keri Giron stated in an e-mail.
Giron said that the nutrition and biochemistry students visit Africa during the summer, and with the help of professors, conduct nutrient analyses of diets.
The students have the opportunity to receive research training in Africa through the Minority International Research Training program, said Dr. Robert Glew.
Glew, a co-director of the program, added that 120 students from UNM have studied in various places in northern Nigeria over the past 10 years and that half of those students have studied in the Fulani village near the city of Jos.
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Giron said that the group wants to try and help the village rebuild homes that they lost in the fire.
"The village has been wonderful about us going into their village and housing us as we poke and pinch," Giron said. "We are looking to raise money to build them new homes to help in their time of need."
UNM College of Education Professor Carole Conn has a doctorate in exercise physiology and is a registered dietician who also has studied extensively the diet of the Fulani people.
Conn said it's important to give back to the village that has cooperated in helping the group understand its culture.
"Our goal is $1,000," she said. "One house in the area costs that much."
She added that the fund-raiser will be a great opportunity for others to taste food from another culture.
The nutrition students have been taking donations from local grocery stores for the food they will sell, whihc will be prepared using recipes Conn brought back from Nigeria.
