Change by Doing Explore the world of volunteering and service

The most rewarding lives are all about building bridges, or even better, forging webs of relationships with many people. Each life we touch adds so much to our own, and when you volunteer and reach out beyond your own comfort zone, you end up affecting and bettering the lives of people you never knew you could reach. We can never be satisfied with isolation. It is easy, when life is at its most difficult, to retreat. It is even instinctual to hide from conflict and worry–but that is EXACTLY the time to reach out, break out of your own cruel mind, and be of service to someone else. I promise it is good for what ails you, and will make you truly grateful for the very fact that you can have a positive influence.

Building bridges is what the U.S.-Africa Children’s Fellowship is all about. Working to enhance education for children in the United States and in Africa, the charitable organization forges sister school relationships between New York and Zimbabwe and Tanzania. More than 50,000 African children are supported at 75 schools in Zimbabwe and 26 schools in Tanzania. In the New York City area, involvement includes 45 primary schools, 8 middle schools, and 18 high schools. Students study and research the other culture, communicate via modern pen-pal methods (email, including swapping photos and video), and the American kids collect materials to ship to Africa in support of their “siblings.” They are eager for your donations of both financial support and school support items: school books, reference books, classroom supplies (pencils, paper, rulers, staplers, graph paper, protractors, etc), art supplies, toiletries, first aid supplies, sports equipment, tools, toys, laboratory equipment, lanterns, fencing supplies, and electronics. The list of needs is compiled by the headmasters and headmistresses of the schools (instead of some outside organization deciding what “they” need).

We don’t build bridges alone–it takes a team.