FSU Service Organization returns from Africa

Global Peace Exchange continues efforts to bring sustainable development to Third World

By: Thomas Frobisher

Posted: 7/14/08

This week, Florida State University students volunteering with Global Peace Exchange returned from Africa after two months working on a series of projects to improve living conditions in Rwanda and Ghana. The projects included working with Liberian refugees on human rights and gender equality in Ghana, but the main project was centered in the village of Byimana, Rwanda, where GPE had recently raised the funds to underwrite the construction of an information technology center that would also double over as a boys' home for local orphans.

"We started this project hoping that students would really get a chance to work on projects that would still be functioning when they were gone, and that they would still have something to say for it after they left," said Alex Merkovic, FSU senior and co-founder of GPE. "And that's really the whole initiative that we had, about sustainable development."

Merkovic, who founded GPE in 2006 along with fellow FSU student Nick Fiore, said that the organization first developed because he and Fiore were finding that opportunities for volunteer work abroad were rather limited for students.

"Of all the volunteer opportunities that students have, sustainable development isn't really an option," Merkovic said. "If students want to volunteer abroad, they either have to be medical students or they have to have a religious affiliation."

Rwanda was chosen as the sight of the IT center - their "spotlight project" - Merkovic said, partly because of the enthusiasm of Rwanda's government and people for the volunteers, but also because of the country's violent past. The 1994 Rwandan genocide, which Merkovic called "one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century," left approximately one tenth of the country's population dead, and another third displaced. Many of the children living at the boys' home are orphans of the genocide.

"The fact that Rwanda was ignored by the international community for so long made us want to go there even more, I guess, to try to make up for the mistakes of the people who were there before us," Merkovic said.

The history of genocide, though, is not the only issue GPE faced in Rwanda, as they were needed as teachers of English at schools and universities. Working alongside Umuryango, a Rwandan non-government volunteer organization, GPE arranged to teach English in the morning to children at the Bukomurl Primary School, and in the afternoons, they participated in a cultural exchange program at the Catholic University of Kabgayi.

In Rwanda, a former Belgian colony, English has only recently been made into the third national language, the other two being French and a local tribal dialect called Kinya Rwanda. While French and Kinya Rwanda are relatively widely spoken and understood, English is still fairly foreign to Rwandans, and many of the people who are supposed to be teaching English, in fact, barely know the language themselves.

"People who were brought up in the Belgian colonial system - which would be most of the English teachers in Rwanda currently ­- their English isn't exactly the best," said Nick Fiore, co-founder and current co-director of GPE. "Especially in rural areas, there's a lack of English teachers, and we tried to fill that void with volunteers."

The volunteers took part in the program in two month-long shifts, one running roughly the length of May and the other of June.

Of the approximately 20 students who traveled, most were from FSU, but also represented were GPE chapters at the University of Central Florida and the University of London. GPE also has chapters in Gainesville at the University of Florida and Santa Fe Community College and a new chapter in Pasadena, California. While Merkovic said that GPE will continue to be based out of FSU, he is excited at the prospect of branching out.

"The Claude Pepper Center (the entity that oversees GPE) really wants FSU to be the flagship of this new international effort to use universities to bridge cultural gaps and for what they call intercultural cooperation," Merkovic said.

In addition to the projects in Africa, GPE continues to work at the local level in Tallahassee. Last year they co-sponsored an AIDS awareness fashion show with the NAACP and a candlelight vigil on Landis Green for the victims of the Rwandan genocide, in addition to banquets and T-shirt sales to raise money for the trip. These activities are the main reason why a group that sends only about 20 people to Africa has a member list of about 150.

"We believe in the power of service in general, not just abroad," said Sarah Ogdie, director of community service at GPE, who traveled to Rwanda during May. "It's a way to bond our members before they actually get into a situation that would be a little bit intense, and it's a way to get everyone involved."

Also, as part of speculative efforts to expand into Central America, several members of the organization this week have paid to fly themselves to Nicaragua, where they will be conducting a "sight visit" looking into setting up an IT center/orphanage after the model in Rwanda. Merkovic, however, stresses that any Nicaraguan project will not be taking place for years, and that now they are focusing mostly on following through with the project in Rwanda.

"We've got a really good relationship with the government," Merkovic said. "They help us out a lot. We've got great partners. We work with other students at other universities. What we have in Rwanda is a really exceptional chance to make a difference."

GPE will be returning to Rwanda in the summer of 2009. Beginning in the fall, they will be holding regular meetings at an as-of-yet unannounced time in the Broad Lecture Auditorium in the Claude Pepper Center.