Voices Against Indifference Initiative

Sly Cheney-Coker Project: Free to Write

October - November 2002

Project Description

Syl Cheney-Coker, a poet and novelist in exile from Sierra Leone, will be in Charlotte Oct. 28-31 for The Echo Foundation’s Voices Against Indifference Initiative, an educational project featuring a series of student dialogues and community forums. Cheney-Coker’s "Free to Write" dialogues with high school and college students, community leaders and writers will focus on freedom of expression issues, against the backdrop of his personal struggle for freedom in his war-torn homeland to his current refuge in the United States.

The Echo Foundation’s Voices Against Indifference Initiative is a multi-faceted program that provides a local stage from which speakers share their personal story or experience to encourage dialogue about human rights issues and to spotlight how one person can make a difference for humanity through words, action and moral courage.