Practice
In this second year of the Ethiopia program, students in Ethiopia would work with African Services Committee, Vital SEEDS and Forum for Street Children in Addis Ababa.
Project work with African Services Committee will be primarily around the issues of HIV/AIDS outreach and treatment. Vital SEEDS is a grassroots organization that is trying to open primary schools in impoverished neighborhoods. Students working with Vital SEEDS will be conduction a needs assessment to recommend a new school site.
Eligibility: Students interested in the African Services Committee are required to do a Spring semester internship here in New York City. The no-credit internship, which will be approximately four hours weekly in office at African Services, would be a training program to learn the administrative system and projects that would then be implemented in Ethiopia.
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.
Potential ASC Summer 2009 Projects:
- Honey production income generations: Work in Mekelle town, Tigray region on the setting up of a gourmet honey export operation to support HIV/AIDS patients by: exploring cooperative building among farmers, exploring middle-man suppliers and ASC production in the short term, exploring relationships and business contacts for refining, packaging and transport/export of honey.
- Inter-organizational Linkages: Networking on behalf of ASC in Addis with other NGOs, foreign missions, Ethiopian national, regional and city official in order to strengthen ASC's ties to the local HIV/AIDS Public Health infrastructure.
- Sex workers' income generation projects: Work with sex workers being trained in acupuncture and help find other income generating opportunities as well as helping to facilitate trained clients in the establishing of their new jobs.
- Testing and admin protocol: Help oversee and improve HIV counseling and Testing services, ASC's largest operation in Ethiopia in the role of a public health administrator by assisting with protocol revision and improvement, data collection oversight and improvement/analysis.
- Lab service evaluation: Help ASC establish a new fee-for-service lab program aimed at providing for-profit services to wealthier customers that would benefit HIV/AIDS services in Ethiopia for those with fewer resources. Help evaluate early efforts and work on program protocols and/or help with marketing and customer service improvements.
Language: An Amharic class will be set up in Spring semester, and students will continue with a teacher in Addis Ababa.