Global Alliance for Africa partners with local African NGOs, religious institutions, and community-based organizations to design and implement innovative economic strengthening programs with the goal of enabling communities and households to provide sustainable care and support for orphans and other vulnerable children affected by HIV/AIDS.
We extend special thanks to the Chicago Art Institute's Art Therapy Department Chair Catherine Moon and the other art therapists, artists and art educators; Angela Lyonsmith, Kolleen Bentivegna, Andrea Koch, Erika Vinson, along with Adler School of Professional Psychology alumna Nicole Bailey and Mt. Mary College alumna Anne-Marie Collins, for traveling with GAA to Africa to address the needs of children orphaned or otherwise made vulnerable by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This past July they traveled to both Kenya and Tanzania to train three Africans as paraprofessionals in the therapeutic arts. Other activities of the group included conducting workshops for children, taking children to a game park and elephant orphanage near Nairobi, and helping out at the new GAA community library in the Kibera slum in Nairobi. At the library, the group worked with community members to plant a garden, build a check-out desk with a mosaic desktop, work on a a wall mural and build furniture from bicycle parts.
Global Alliance for Africa is hosting the 2nd Annual Service Learning Conference at Loyola University Chicago. This free two-day conference and workshop is designed for local area high school students and their faculty. Its focus will be on social justice issues in developing countries in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia and ways that high school students can learn about and participate in community-based efforts to address these problems.
Representatives of community -based organizations dedicated to concrete social justice issues such as global poverty, the AIDS epidemic, sweatshops, environmental degradation, and human rights violations will conduct lectures, video presentations, and focus group discussions on the above topics; university students will describe ways that today's colleges or universitites have enabled them to expand and deepen the social awareness that was an important part of their own high school experience; and high school students will discuss ways that they are currently engaging in service learning and the issues surrounding their experiences.
Safari Cup Coffee is a Chicago based retail and wholesale distributor of fine African Arabica coffee that has generously agreed to donate 25% of their wholesale proceeds to help GAA fund more micro-enterprise initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa. For some 'African Adventure in a Cup' stop by Safari Cup Coffee at 3404 N. Southport Avenue and introduce yourself to the owners Dave and Sharon McLaughlin and stay for a cup of joe or two, or visit their website at www.safaricup.com.
Soko Rafiki brings the African market to the States, connecting you, the consumer, with the work of artisans from Africa. As a natural out-growth of Global Alliance for Africa's economic strengthening activities and strategies, Soko Rafiki is prmototing the sale of well constructed, environmentally sustainable products made by some of GAA's program partners and other women's cooperatives.Visit Soko Rafiki, a member of the Chicago Fair Trade Association, at www.sokorafiki.com. A percentage of sales is donated to help support Global Alliance for Africa's Therapeutic Arts Program.
Safari Cup Coffee