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East Africa 2008

East Africa: Kenya / Ethiopia

Offered for the first time, the Kenya and Ethiopia program will give students the chance to work in East Africa on projects related to HIV/AIDS outreach and treatment, community health, education, economic development and capacity building.

Kenya

The Kenya program is currently in jeopardy of not taking place due to the instability in the country. A decision will be made in early March on whether to have the program or not. If it happens, it will take place in Takaungu, a village on the Kenya coast, working with the East African Center for the Empowerment of Women and Children (EAC). There have not been any incidents of inter-ethnic tension in this area of Kenya, but there have been political demonstrations.


In Takaungu, the EAC has built and operates a community center with a health center and a primary school. GPIA students would work on sectors and projects involved with the community center: developing (and perhaps teaching) curriculum on subjects not now covered, such as astronomy, botany and marine science, and working with students who have learning disabilities. In addition, there are implementation opportunities to work with EAC Community Health Workers in HIV/AIDS outreach, education and testing.

For more information on the East African Center, visit their website: http://www.eastafricancenter.org/

Language: A Swahili course may be required in Spring semester.

Ethiopia

Students in Ethiopia would work with the African Services Committee in Addis Ababa and possibly Mekele, the capital of Tigray province.

In Addis, the African Services Committee works in HIV outreach, prevention, testing and counseling, and family planning services. However, African Services Committee would like students to work on capacity building, implementing administrative and management procedures such as reporting and communications. Another project area would be grant writing and local donor networking.

Eligibility: Students interested in the Ethiopia program would be required to spend Spring semester interning with the African Services Committee here in New York City. The internship would be a training program to learn the administrative system that would then be implemented in Ethiopia. In addition to the six-credit summer IFP, students would have to enroll in a three-credit internship for Spring semester.

It would be helpful if interested students have IT, database software, survey methods, and SPSS skills.

The African Services Committee (ASC) was founded in New York by an Ethiopian refugee as an NGO to help Ethiopian refugees and immigrants. Over the years they expanded to serve all African immigrants, and in 2002 they expanded back to Ethiopia to do development projects. For more information on the African Services Committee, visit their website: http://www.africanservices.org/

Language: The Ethiopia program has no language requirement, though any applicant choosing to study Amharic independently will be favorably looked-upon.

Program Coordinator: Mark Johnson (JohnsonM@newschool.edu)

Information Session: Thursday, Oct. 4, 7 pm, Conference Room 609

Program Dates: June 2 – July 28 2008

Please visit the East Africa 2008 student page.