Teen uses 16th birthday to give, not take

Katie Hoselton As her 16th birthday approached, Katie Hoselton of Westlake Village knew that she wanted her party to be something special.

Her plans didn't include an over-the-top blowout in a fancy hotel ballroom or a table piled high with expensive gifts. Instead, on the evening of Nov. 15, Katie invited her friends into her backyard to help build support for a new school in Sudan.

In lieu of gifts, guests were asked to make a contribution to the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, which is building the first secondary school in the village of Marial Bai in the Bahr al-Ghazal region of Southern Sudan; Darfur lies just to the north. Twenty-two years of civil war that raged there from 1983 to 2005 displaced almost 6 million Southern Sudanese and devastated the educational infrastructure.

The new school, currently under construction, is the first phase of an 11-structure community education complex planned by the foundation.

The party guests ate and danced, and for a quarter hour they viewed a DVD about the foundation's work projected on the wall of a tent festooned with African flags.

Many of the cards Katie received contained messages of thanks for the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of strangers half a world away.

Katie says that the decision to forgo gifts was no big deal.

"What do I need? Nothing. The satisfaction of getting a new purse is absolutely nothing in comparison to seeing all the money that is spent on birthday presents being put towards someone who really needs it."

For more information about the work of the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation or to make a donation, visit the website www.valentinoachakdeng.org.