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REPORTS FROM THE VILLAGE
Winter Serve and Learn Program – A partnership with Cornell's Cover Africa student organization to prevent malaria
In the Spring of 2007, GHEI began planning a new volunteer program with Cornell's Cover Africa student group. Shoshana Aleinikoff, then a junior at Cornell, contacted GHEI about working with our organization in the creation of a year-long seminar class that would include a two-week service learning trip.
Prior to volunteering with our Summer Serve and Learn program in 2007, Shoshana spent two weeks in Humjibre in order to familiarize herself with the community and to help plan the proposed winter sessions with GHEI staff.
The class and service focused on the economic, health, and social aspects of malaria as well as more general topics such as service learning and foreign aid and development in Africa. The fall semester seminars were taught by scholars from a variety of disciplines. For example, lectures were given on International Aid in Ghana, Modern Ghanaian Politics, No-harm Service Learning, and Economics of Developing Countries and Malaria. In addition, the class received guidance and structure in the planning of an IRB approved malaria study.
There were two two-week long volunteer sessions scheduled through the winter break, 2007-2008, each with five volunteers, a faculty member and Shoshana who acted as Volunteer Coordinator. Aside from the research component, volunteers were involved in education and retreatment days. They distributed more than 300 insecticide treated nets, retreated 150 nets, reached hundreds of people through education days and surveyed 350 people throughout Humjibre.
The addition of a seminar series and the mentorship from Cornell faculty provides invaluable knowledge and momentum, greatly enriching the volunteer experience. After return from Ghana, seminar sessions focused on evaluation of survey results, group reflection and preparation for future programs with GHEI.
The twelve Cornell Cover Africa volunteers raised more than $13,000 for GHEI, donated 12 suitcases of medical supplies, office supplies, clothes and other items that GHEI requested. They enabled GHEI to greatly advance our malaria prevention work in Humjibre and shared their excitement and passion with Humjibre. They immersed themselves in the community, tutoring with GHEI’s tutoring center, playing with the children and working with GHEI’s adult peer educators. They found the experience to provide invaluable insight about community development.
Students “learned that development is not about charity, it is about working on community empowerment and community mobilization. Students came away feeling a moral obligation to continue to be a citizen of a global community… but also to get involved locally.”
GHEI is excited to continue this relationship with Cornell's Cover Africa student group, and is actively planning for the 2008-2009 Serve and Learn Session.
"I learned many things on this trip, but most of all I think was the realization that the human spirit is truly indomitable. That our quest for happiness and the love we have for each other crosses all boundaries and cultures and no amount of adversity can take that from us. That stripped of our ethnicities, races, cultures and customs, we are all human. All of us."
- Winter Cornell Serve and Learn Volunteer 2007-2008
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