community

The UN’s International Year of Youth reminds all of us in the development community of the value of youth contributions to a vibrant civil society, to good policy development, and to bringing our world closer together. In addition, the Year reminds us that youth also will be the entrepreneurs for tomorrow; their creativity, with our help, must assure employment for a large percentage of the world’s population.

As a volunteer in Russia, I was frequently asked to speak to youth and educators about community service in the United States.

Annual observances such as Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day are useful tools for highlighting some of the many accomplishments of women as well as drawing much-needed attention to gender-based disparities around the globe.

One of the things I love about my job is that I get to see the world through other people’s eyes. When exchange participants arrive in the US and encounter new things on campus for the first time, I get to see how my country looks to them and hear about what Americans are like from an outside perspective. When they return home, I hear about what they notice at home now – after their time in the US – that they never noticed before.

We added the day’s receipts again and counted the money in the cash box one more time. They were equal. This was a milestone. For the past 12 months as a Small Business Volunteer with the United States Peace Corps in Kaffrine, Senegal, I had worked with the Treasurer to tailor an accounting system for this female-owned juice and jelly business. Nearly every time we reconciled the expenses and sales with the cash box there had been a discrepancy, but today they were equal. Our accounting system had finally worked, and it would continue to work.

Maybe it was just luck that my bicycle tire blew out right in front of the bike repair stand in the Freedom Compound shanty town. I took that same road every time I travelled between my village and the town of Monze during my Peace Corps service in Zambia. I usually pedaled as quickly as I could through Freedom Compound in order to avoid all the beckoning calls of “Mzungu”, white person or foreigner. This time I had no choice but to stop. As soon as I slowed down I was rushed by people trying to help me. “No, no, it’s fine, I can manage myself” I told them.

There are 33.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS throughout the world. Today is World AIDS Day - a day of opportunity to raise awareness and educate about the disease which affects all nations at the most local level.

Individual initiative is often the small spark that incites change within a school community. Raphael Aidoo-Taylor of Ghana is an alumnus of the Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program (TEA), which equips teachers with teaching methodologies, strategies for classroom management, and a broader understanding of the culture and people of the United States.

I have spent the past week in Kigali, working with Eugene Gatari and the rest of our local staff to launch the USAID/IREX Youth for Change: Building Peace in Rwandan Communities Program (Y4C).

During  2009, I volunteered as an English and computer literacy teacher at Louverture Cleary School in Santo, Haiti, through The Haitian Project. I have continued my involvement with Haitian teachers over the past year by working on the Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program (TEA) at IREX. Needless to say, last January’s earthquake came as a shock.