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The year 2012 seems to have gone by so quickly. For me, the last year was one full of joy and appreciation. I always dreamt of experiencing Africa in the flesh and luckily I was given the opportunity to realize this wish through EWB. Last year, I had a wonderful chance to work and travel in various parts of Africa and to work as a coordinator of the GAPA project in Burkina Faso. EWB applies an integrated approach, using various educational programs: a literacy campaign and basic life-skill training, HIV/AID prevention education, job-skills training, and micro-credit for income-generation activities.

 

The experience in Burkina Faso presented a number of challenges, but I have no regrets whatsoever about facing and overcoming the difficulties I was presented with. In the first three months, everything was new and interesting to me. However, it then started getting difficult and it gradually became a life of struggle. It was obviously not easy to adjust to such different circumstance and a new culture; however, I realized that people differ in degrees, not in kind. The people of Burkina Faso also seek a better life, work hard, and suffer from the heat and the dust just as anyone else would. My knowledge of international development remains shallow, but I know that it is truly beautiful to live and work together for a worthy cause. Burkina Faso was completely unfamiliar to me before I went there, but now it has become my second home. I believe the people of Burkina Faso still need other friends in the international community and I hope that many people will be a party to the project in many different ways. “Be a true friend to them, not for your own self-consolation or personal satisfaction or to merely add them to your list of achievements. It is only then that you will develop meaningful and precious friendships and in so doing enrich your life and theirs. Remember, this is work which is truly worthy!”