Over the past few days, we have visited the American Embassy twice. We've met with the programs director of USAID, the development arm of the international action of the American Government. They give money to communities and organizations to support educational, environmental, economic, health and human rights initiatives all over the world, and through PEPFAR (Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief or something like that) donate tons of money to community health centers and the prevention of the spread of HIV. Ms. Washington, the woman we met with, was super chill and down to Earth, and very willing to help us. Since they work a lot with Peace Corps, the have resources all over the country to use and collaborate with, so it's awesome that WorldTeach is reaching out to the American Embassy.
Today, we met with the American Cultural Center and Library, and learned more about grants and scholarships that send students from Namibia to American Universities. They have book donations all over the country, and are excited to be connected with us. WorldTeach is amazing because we are directly employed by the Namibian Ministry of Education. This means that we are directly supporting the Ministry, so no one can really say we are just here to push an American agenda or something. One thing we haven't really worked on doing is collaborating with Namibian and foreign organizations with similar missions. So it will be nice to branch out and work together with other organizations. We are also meeting with the Namibian Library tomorrow, and apparently they will mail books out to any school that requests them, which is awesome!
Two other things:
1. We head to our site at ~6 am on Thursday!
2. Mom, you were right. I am getting the Yellow Fever vaccine tomorrow, so that I can go to Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe! Then, for Easter, we are going to try and go to Victoria Falls from every which way!
tell me about life in the capitol
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