Aid to
South Africa and The South African
Experience
Honors
Reaches Out to South Africa
Through the graciousness of a leadership grant
I received from the Kellogg Foundation, in March
1997, I had the opportunity to travel to South
Africa. In countless ways, South Africa became a
‘trip of a lifetime,’ or so I thought. Little
could I have imagined that the people met,
places seen, causes served or lessons learned
would have become such a central part of my
professional and personal life.
Dr. Kevin Dean Director of
Honors
The seeds of that initial experience
have flowered into the development of a course that has
reached over 250 WCU students, established Deon’s
International Shoe Fund that has helped raise Africa and
America through the internet and visits to campus from
South African leaders, enriched the service activities
sponsored annually by the Honors Student Association by
focusing on the ability of students to apply lessons learned
internationally to communities in the West Chester region,
and paved the way, to date, for three teams of WCU students,
faculty and staff to travel to South Africa to participate
in community needs assessment projects that have profoundly
impacted lives on both sides of the ocean.
I
am particularly proud of our Honors International South
African scholar alumni, many of whom have allowed the
South African experience to shape their post
baccalaureate lives. WCU Honors alumni are serving
through a variety of specialized teaching programs that
are connecting them with economically disadvantaged
inner city and rural youth, linking research in graduate
school to underrepresen-ted populations, planning
projects in medical school that will lead to residency
and rotation placements in non-traditional settings and
even actively committing to international service
projects that allow them to return to South Africa.
It
is with pleasure that I and a devoted group of WCU
faculty and Honors Program students who are ‘alumni’ of
the South African experiences have begun work for our
fourth student/faculty research/service project to South
Africa in spring 2008. I am confident that this
experience will open additional doors to unanticipated
opportunities for all participants.
The funds raised at the Aid
to South Africa Event in 2007 will go directly
towards the H. E. L. P. Ministry Soup Kitchen
and the Sparrow Village AIDS Orphanage.
West Chester students
who have gone to the soup kitchen have been touched and
shocked by the incredible work these people have done.
Every day 5,000 children are provided with a cup
of soup and a slice of bread. For most of
these children it will be their only meal of the
day.
The students who
went to South Africa in 2006 were also frequent
spectators to the harsh realities of the
widespread AIDS epidemic. Students performed
community needs assessments of children affected
by AIDS. All of the children in the
Sparrow Village orphanage have AIDS. The eye-opening,
heart-breaking, and inspiring moments that each student
felt in South Africa has contributed to the drive behind
the Aid to South Africa event.
