Updated

Volunteers for CorpsAfrica start in Morocco, planned for Ethiopia, Senegal – Nadia Elboubkri

Nadia Elboubkri, MAC

October 4, 2013

Africans coming together to help other Africans—that’s the mission of CorpsAfrica, an organization modeled after the Peace Corps that gives young adults across Africa the opportunity to volunteer in their own communities. Essentially, “CorpsAfrica is committed to encouraging bolder philanthropy toward poverty in Africa.”

CorpsAfrica is recruiting men and women from various countries in Africa to be assigned to high-poverty and developing communities within their own country. Each CorpsAfrica volunteer will stay in a host community for one year to create and support small projects to foster economic growth and prosperity.

In its three year pilot phase, CorpsAfrica’s will work in Morocco and two other Sub-Saharan countries, most likely Ethiopia and Senegal, as the program is extended throughout the continent.

The goals for the CorpsAfrica volunteers is to give African volunteers “transformative and career boosting benefits” by building on pride and national service, to provide training, job skills, and “an understanding of poverty that only comes from living in it” to create the future generation of NGO workers, government officials, scholars, business leaders, philanthropists, and active community members.

With these skills, the volunteers will work in Africa to reduce poverty, promote development of civil society, private sector, and education, and, particularly, to “actualize and demonstrate the multiplied effect of focusing on women and girls.”

Founded by Liz Fanning, a former PeaceCorps volunteer to Morocco, and staffed by a multicultural and multidisciplinary board of directors and team of CorpsAfrica volunteers, the team has hit the ground running in terms of training volunteers and developing programs for community-building in Morocco.

The first round of Moroccan fellows began training on September 16th.

Initial development partners for CorpsAfrica include the OCP Foundation, Al-Akhawayan University, the International Youth Foundation, UNICEF Maroc, Morocco Exchange, the Moroccan Ministry of Youth and Sports, JCI Rabat, the Institute for Leadership and Communication Studies, the Mediterranean Forum for Youth, and many others.

For more information on CorpsAfrica sponsors and for details on supporting CorpsAfrica volunteers, please visit their official website.

 

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