The AAASE Service Campaigns comprise a group of initiatives focused on raising awareness and helping various communities in the United States, Africa, including Ghana and South Africa, and the Caribbean. To learn more or to become involved in each initiative, please contact the coordinator for each program.
The Call of South Africa Adopt-A-Student Program is one of several service projects being developed with our community partners in South Africa. The brainchild of Dr. Prudence Layne who introduced Elon’s first study abroad program to South Africa, the program pairs a child at the Ekukhanyisweni Primary School in Alexandra, South Africa with a sponsor in the United States who agrees to help fund a child’s education for one year.
‘Ekukhanyisweni’ is the Zulu word for “place of light” and the school lives up to its name. Although the new facility opened in January 2007, the twenty-five teachers there do their best to work amidst the severe overcrowding in their classrooms, with each often serving more than forty students. As one can imagine, resources are strained and it is a challenge to meet the overwhelming needs of the more than 1000 students who call the school home and truly make this a “place of light.”
Through the Adopt-A-Student Program, each sponsor’s pledge will be used to support the education of a deserving student. It takes US $40 to help send a child to the Ekukhanyisweni Primary School for one whole year! That’s approximately Rand 280. The price includes the R100 school fees for the year, school supplies, the school sports uniform (t-shirt, jeans, and white sneakers) of R40 and a regular school uniform. Working with the principal and teachers at the school, students who show academic promise, whose families are experiencing financial difficulties, and students in the higher grades will be given priority. Currently, the school educates our equivalent of pre-k through junior high.
To make a contribution, complete the Sponsor/Child Profile form. After the funds are converted to the local currency, students enrolled in the South Africa winter term program will work to match a sponsor with a child, provide sponsors with a photo and profile of their ‘adopted’ child, and account for how the funds have been spent. Please email the Sponsor/Child Profile to playne@elon.edu or send a hard copy via campus mail to 2338 Campus Box, Elon, NC 27244 with your check/money order made payable to Elon University/AAASE. Arrangements can be made for cash payments.
If you are interested in helping or learning more about the Call of South Africa’s other service projects, please call (336) 278-5618 or visit the program’s website at http://www.elon.edu/sasa for more details.
Click here to download the sponsorship form.
Please visit the 2009 Periclean Scholars website at: http://org.elon.edu/pericleanscholars2009/about.php
The scholars have raised close to $50, 000 and provided medical supplies and equipment for a rural health center for the approximately 10,000 people of Kpoeta, Ghana who lose access to health care services each rainy season (May/June-Nov.) when the unpaved road from Kpoeta to the only health clinic in the area becomes impassible.
During the 2006-07 academic year Elon hosted Fulbright Scholar Dr. Francis Amedahe of Ghana. Dr. Amedahe is a Professor of Education from Kpoeta, a cluster of three small villages and several hamlets near the Ghana-Togo border in eastern Ghana. Kpoeta is located seven miles from a small health clinic, but for much of the year the unpaved road between Kpoeta and the clinic becomes impassible and people literally carry the injured and sick for miles on a chair or stretcher for the entire distance when no vehicles are available, or at minimum, the one mile stretch of completely impassible road if they do have access to a vehicle for part of the trip. The results are often tragic with many dying (from snake bite, complications from childbirth, etc.) before they reach a health facility. The people of Kpoeta now have a health center in Kpoeta that provides for their health needs year round. The Government of Ghana provides Kpoeta a government-paid nurse.
Checks should be made out to Elon University, Periclean Scholars, Class of 2010 and sent to Heidi G. Frontani, Elon University, Campus Box 2298, Elon, NC 27244. Please write Kpoeta Campaign in the memo portion of your check. For more information please phone (336) 278-6462 or email glaesel@elon.edu Also, visit the 2010 Periclean Scholars website at: http://org.elon.edu/pericleanscholars2010.
elon}