Africa calling

It's a long journey from the Chapel Quad to the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

But it's a journey that Valerie Johnson has made many times.

Johnson (T '02) is the director of the Amani Children's Home, a home for street children and AIDS orphans in Moshi, Tanzania. She first traveled to Tanzania during high school, then studied in Kenya while double-majoring in African Studies and Psychology at Duke. After graduating, Johnson returned to Tanzania as a volunteer.

"I thought, 'Well, maybe in some small way I can get involved and do a little good,'" she says.

Johnson isn't the only alum interested in Africa. Increasingly, students are mobilizing Duke's resources in their support of African causes.

Students at Duke and UNC are working together to raise money to sponsor a millennium village in Africa. If they succeed in raising $750,000, an anonymous donor will match the amount. The $1.5 million will fund practical measures to raise a single village out of poverty over the next five years-measures as simple as mosquito nets to prevent malaria and fertilizer to enrich land.

Trinity sophomore Samson Mesele founded the Duke in Africa Educational Trust to build schools and educate students in Kenya and Ethiopia, where members of his family still live. So far, the organization has secured a school building in Addis Ababa and 10 acres of land on which to build a school in Kenya. They are now raising funds for construction and developing a curriculum.

And postgraduate opportunities for service learning in Africa abound. The Hart Fellowship, which supports recent graduates working with NGOs in developing countries, has sent 26 out of their 60 fellows to African countries.