Jamie Joseph, 2013, Woodrow Wilson School
This summer I worked for Ubuntu Africa (UBA), a South African NGO that works to provide comprehensive care to HIV-positive children and teens. UBA is based in Khayelitsha, a township based just outside of Cape Town that has high rates of poverty, unemployment, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS. For my main project, I put together an Ubuntu Africa Chapter Package. In an effort to raise awareness about the organization and its mission, UBA wanted to offer motivated college students a set of resources to help them start on-campus groups that would support the organization. I created a “chapter package,” a combination of checklists, letter templates, and organizational guides to educate students about Ubuntu Africa, and to help them as they work to advocate for the organization. These materials will soon be modified by the organization for use by other potential support groups, such as high school students or adults. I also assisted UBA with outreach, through research, social media outlets, and through my personal blog. My fellow interns and I researched numerous organizations, both South-African based and international, looking for NGO’s that UBA could forge partnerships with in the future. Then, we used social media—especially Twitter and Facebook—to reach out to these groups. Finally, my blog became an additional publicity tool for the organization; it can be found at ubuntuintern.tumblr.com.