Thank you for visiting my campaign!  I need your help to make this happen!  

I believe everyone deserves access to clean water, healthy food, education and dignity.

By sponsoring my campaign you will be helping me to promote a bright future of education, health and development to a community that I will eat, sleep and live in for three months.  

I am super excited to finally have the opportunity to make the transition from school into my future career.

Here's how I'm going to do it:  I have been offered an internship with the WebDev foundation to gain on the job experience in Cameroon from June 10, 2013 - August 20 2013.  

WEBDEV FOUNDATION is an amazing program that I’m proud to be asked to work for them. They undertake, alongside the Cameroonian government and other national and international organizations, to contribute in the areas of education, health, environment and culture to fight against underdevelopment.

• Y4B (Young For Business) - This project aims to show the young residents of rural regions the opportunities surrounding them in the business area.
• HEALTH HOPE Project - To educate rural populations on the risks of contracting HIV and AIDS, malaria, Cholera
• Community Sports - The main objective of the community sport program is the promotion of youth involvement in community development and leadership.
• REHABILITATION OF WATER POINTS - The water is life. But in Africa, many peoples still consume contaminated water.  We will work to reduce this.
• Social IT - The ICT in the Third Millennium is still a myth in some localities of the country. This project objective is to provide computer training to general populations and students in rural areas during holiday periods.

Our Goals:

• Peer educators trained – 100
• Number of peoples sensitized (HIV/AIDS and Malaria) – 3,000
• Number of Mosquito nets shared – 2,000
• Number of people trained on Entrepreneurship – 30
• Number of people trained on computers – 150
• Number of large scale community works – 2
• Number of Football tournament (nutrition and sports) – 1
• Number of pocket blood donations – 10
• Number of villages directly involved – 3
• Number of villages touched by the project – 7

If I don't reach my financial goals from this campaign, I will make arrangements for the money to be sent to the organization in my place to help support the next person who might be able to get there!

A Little About Me

In 2010 I left my job to begin a journey to work in community development. Since it was a new area of expertise for me I realized completing my formal education was necessary. As a result I'm currently a Junior at Cornell University studying Policy Analysis and Management.

While studying I have made a commitment to volunteering and working with local youth programs in Poughkeepsie and Ithaca with at-risk and low-income youth engaging them to learn about healthy living, entrepreneurial skills and financial education.

My experience has been in fundraising for Save the Children, The United Way, St. Jude's hospital, many of which you all supported and donated through me (thank you again!).  Then I began working with programs directly.  In Beacon I worked with the Green Teens who learned how to live healthy life and break the cycle.  Supplementing a typical minimum wage job with the Green Teen program did this for the kids.  

My trip to Africa serves to help me understand how different programs work.  This knowledge is crucial to help me do better all around whether it will be here in the US or abroad.  I do not discriminate against people in need by the country they are located in.  I believe we have poverty in the US to work on as well.  

My work in Africa will include the same thing that I do here with the YEP program (Young Entrepreneurs Program), teaching people (mostly children and young adults) how to identify opportunities in their own life and utilize them to improve their situation.  My work will also include a lot of humanitarian work as well.  We need to provide a framework where people can focus on these vital skills to survive and make money whilst their families are being torn apart by diseases such at Malaria and lack of clean water.  So this is a trip that combines many facets of work to hopefully make a useful impact.

I am looking forward to working alongside those in the field to get down and dirty to make some change!

What I Will Need:

• $3500 to cover my expenses for 3 months:
• Vaccines - 
  • Rabies $900
  • Yellow Fever $175
  • Dengue Fever $175
• Tuition Expenses - this is to cover the shortfall that I will incur whilst working and studying overseas. (student contribution my school requires me to earn over the summer)
• Help cover my fixed expenses while away 
• $1500 and above will go for programming
• Will go directly towards the programs listed above

What I Already Have:

• Airfare (provided by a grant)
• Personal Savings Towards Goal

Other Ways You Can Help

Please spread the word! Like I said I can't do this without you!