South Africa: 
Sustainable Child Support Center

Joe Kennedy ('90), a pioneer of ecological design and sustainable housing for 15 years, is working with the non-profit organization NextAid to help design and build an earth-friendly, self-sustainable, multi-purpose learning center for children orphaned by AIDS in South Africa and other needy youth.  Based in Dennilton, a rural town outside of Johannesburg faced with extreme poverty (95% unemployment) and a 40% HIV infection rate, the center will eventually incorporate an orphan/elder ecovillage, performance and study spaces, a micro-enterprise element and sustainable food production systems. 
(updated 9/05)



Tamil Nadu, India: 
South Asian Community Center for Education and Research (SACCER)

S.P. Udayakumar (Kumar) ('90) founded SACCER in 1993 to promote development, education and research in his home community.  SACCER projects have now grown to include an elementary school, a vocational school, vocational centres for women in twelve coastal villages, entrepreneurship training for young fisherwomen (in cooperation with Women Without Borders, a Vienna-based NGO), and day care for the elderly, and on-line India-Pakistan Reconciliation School.  SACCER is also providing assistance to tsunami victims through numerous projects, including publishing handbooks on disaster education in Tamil and in English. 
(updated 9/05)



Campaign to Stop Genocide in Sudan

Brenna Cussen ('03) traveled to Darfur, Sudan with a Catholic Worker Peace Team in December 2004, and in February 2005 was arrested with six others for blocking the entrance to the Sudanese Embassy in Washington DC in protest against the ongoing genocide in Darfur.  On May 25, 2005, they were found guilty of "unlawful assembly" and given a suspended sentence.   This is believed to be the first case of Darfur-related civil diobedience to come to trial.
(updated 7/05)

Uganda Conflict Action Network (Uganda-CAN)

Peace studies graduate Michael Poffenberger (BA '05) and senior Peter Quaranto (BA '06) founded the Uganda Conflict Action Network in May 2005 after witnessing the horrors of war in northern Uganda. This 19-year-old hidden war that has pushed more than 1.6 million people into internally-displaced people's camps and led to the brutal abduction of more than 25,000 children by the Lord's Resistance Army. Says Quaranto: "As I sat there listening to people in refugee camps telling me their stories, I just kept thinking to myself: How can this be happening?"
(updated 9/05)

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