Youth Action International is a non-governmental organization that uses grassroots techniques to develop and implement programs that help alleviate the suffering of children affected by war or living in difficult circumstances, empower them to reach their full potential, and break cycles of violence and poverty.
Read the YAI 2008 Annual Report: Empowering Africa (pdf)
Kimmie Weeks has years of experience forming partnerships and leading organizations that have provided education to thousands of students in West Africa, lobbied the disarmament of child soldiers, and provided health care and recreation supplies to children.Kimmie Weeks is the recipient of the 2007 Golden Brick Award which honors young people under 25 years old who are working to change the world. Also in 2007, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf presented Kimmie with Liberia’s highest honor by decorating him Knight Grand Commander in the Humane Order of African Redemption. Kimmie is the youngest recipient of this honor. He is also featured in the new book Peace in Our Lifetime as an international peacemaker, along with Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. In 2008, MTV Canada and Discovery Chanel International profiled Kimmie’s work as part of a new reality series called 4REAL.Kimmie Weeks received his bachelors from Amherst College and his Masters from the University of Pennsylvania. He currently serves as Executive Director of Youth Action International. He also serves on the Board of Directors of DoSomething, and as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council.
Abena graduated from Wesleyan University in 2007 with a dual-degree in Government and Psychology. There, she served in a number of student leadership positions, including Chair of the African Students’ Association and co-chair to the Student Judicial Board. Her interest in sustainable humanitarian aid led her to internships with the United Nations World Food Program, where she worked to fundraise for the WFP School Feeding program and attended task force meetings for the United Nations Missions in Sudan and Ethiopia/Eritrea.
From her college and internship experiences, her interest in humanitarian issues matured into a deep-seeded passion for child rights advocacy. As a secretary for the youth organization, Save Darfur, Abena wrote articles and newsletters against the deployment of children in armed conflict. After one year of paralegal work with the New York-based firm, Cravath, Swaine, & Moore, LLP, Abena joined the YAI staff as an External Consultant to the Monrovia and Freetown offices. Based in Monrovia, Abena helps to coordinate and fundraise for YAI’s projects in West Africa. She is also responsible for spearheading YAI’s first set of reintegration projects targeting former child soldiers in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Memory is passionate about women and children’s issues.In 1998, Memory co-founded the Girl Child Network (GCN), a charitable trust and national network of girls that aims to give moral, educational, emotional, and financial support to underprivileged girls. Since 2003, she has been working with Tariro: Hope and Health for Zimbabwe’s Orphans, an organization that provides educational support for young women in their late teens and early twenties whose families have been affected by poverty, neglect, and HIV/AIDS. She also interned with Heifer International and gained experience in research, policy analysis, and program development.Over the years, Memory has remained actively involved with GCN, Tariro, and various community service projects. Memory obtained her bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College, in Massachusetts. She also holds a Master of Science in International Relations from Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.
Natsumi is a former professional ballet dancer in Japan, Europe and US. Originally from Tokyo, Japan, After graduating from Mount Holyoke College, Natsumi is currently pursuing graduate studies at Maryland School of Public Policy, specializing International Development. Natsumi’s ultimate dream and ambition is the advancement and promotion of human rights and equality in the world.†Working with Mr. Pinu Chowdry of the American-Bangladeshi Scholarship Enterprise, Natsumi has helped sponsor orphans in Bangladesh who wish to gain an education. Natsumi†has also joined the former director of the American Kurdish Association, Mr. Memo Amedi, as an advocate for Kurdish cultural and human rights in Turkey.
Saikon Gbehan serves as the National Coordinator of the Youth Action International College Chapters Program. She is a litigation attorney at Adler Pollock & Sheehan, P.C. in Providence, RI. Ms. Gbehan graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 2004 with a B.A. in Psychology, magna cum laude, and a minor in Business Administration. She went on to earn her J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law in 2008.
Dominique is currently at McGill University studying Political Science, Social Studies of Medicine and International Development. She is active in McGill’s chapter of STAND – Students Taking Action Now: Darfur and with the school’s newspaper, and has traveled to work ondevelopment projects in Kenya and Vanuatu. As Canada’s National Coordinator of Youth Action International, Dominique works to get Canadianschools involved with the organization, answer questions and coordinate fundraising projects.
David is a graduate of Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, where he studied graphic design and typography. Now living in the Boston area, heworks as a font designer. He is proud to work on booklets, pamphlets, websites and other components of Youth Action International’s visualidentity.
Emily has worked in the nonprofit sector for eight years for organizations such as Infant Welfare Society and the Great Lakes Children’s Museum, and has experience in program management, volunteer coordination, and fundraising. She graduated from Michigan State University with a B.A. in International Studies in Social Science as well as a specialization in International Development, and is currently pursuing an MBA from Lawrence Technological University. Emily’s passion for sub-Saharan Africa began during her undergraduate studies and travel to Ghana, and continues today with her employment at Youth Action International.
On June 15th, the Chase Community Giving will begin. Voters will be able to use their facebook accounts to determine which organizations will win one of the many cash prizes.
Our ability to win this money to help us continue our work in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Uganda depends on your vote. So please take a moment to click the VOTE NOW link, login to your facebook account and vote for us.
I’ve been thinking about what to write since I came back from Liberia. I am from Spain and English is my fourth language – I also speak Spanish, Italian, and Catalan. So as you can imagine, it took me forever to put all my thoughts in order in English.
My name is Esther Rodriguez-Brown. My husband, Michael, and I are the founders of The Embracing Project, a non profit organization we created to educate inner city youth about the similarities between genocide and gang activity. One purpose of this journey is to expose inner city youth to the experiences of children soldiers in different parts of the world and then to create a pen-pal relationship between both groups.
Every year, Kimmie Weeks embarks on a nationwide speaking tour to motivate young people to become pioneers of change. To date, thousands of students have heard his message and many of them have gone on to start their own humanitarian organizations or have joined other change-making programs.
Contact Natsumi Ajiki: natsumi @ peaceforkids.org
“What have I gotten myself into?”
This is a question that has come up many times on my journey to Africa.
I suppose to clarify, and so as not to sound like a cynic, I should explain a little bit about myself. I’ve been a photographer for two and a half years now. When I first picked up a camera the only thought that went through my head was “Awesome, now I have a big chunk of metal, plastic and glass that will allow me to take clearer photos and I’ll soon be rich and famous as a result of having this camera!”
This was not the case as I am neither rich, nor famous (side from my own delusions of grandeur.) Anyways all of that is beside the point. If someone had told me the day that I picked up that camera that it would eventually lead me to post war West Africa, I would have laughed in their faces. Not because traveling to West Africa is a crazy idea, but simply because I did not see myself ever getting past the stage of “hobbyist” photography.
And yet, here I sit, in Sierra Leone, thousands of miles from home (6168 miles approximately) volunteering as the photographer for Youth Action International.
Now in regards to Africa, particularly Sierra Leone and Liberia, I don’t think that anything could have really prepared me for what I would experience here. This is including Kimmie’s ‘worst case scenario’ description of Liberia.
I wish I had been more diligent about documenting my experiences and reactions in Liberia, but I seemed to always put off the act of writing. I always told myself I was too tired or busy, but the truth is that I had a very difficult time reflecting on the barrage of experiences at the time. Throughout my time in Africa, I realized that I did not once shed a tear. It was only once I was on the plane from Accra to New York, on my way back to my privileged and comfortable life, that I was able to absorb the memories and the pictures that I was taking with me. As I looked through the pictures I had taken on my camera, I cried for a half an hour straight. I cried thinking about the hopeful faces on the small children at Temas Orphanage that I was leaving. I cried for young people of Grand Bassa County who do not have the opportunity to go to school. I cried because I realized that my life would be changed forever and I cried because I felt an overwhelming sense of helplessness.
A cross-section of observers, traditional and religious leaders, local and international media stormed Ri-Kwangba last week to witness the historical moment were Joseph Kony, the Lord Resistance Army (LRA) leader was supposed to sign the final peace agreement. The rest of the world held its breath to witness the day that northern Uganda would finally get to normalcy after 20 years of conflict between the Government of Uganda and the LRA rebels.
“Aren’t you nervous?” my dear friend carefully asked me when I told her that I’d be visiting Uganda. That’s how my parents reacted at first. I told myself it is not because Uganda is part of Africa that they are worried for my travel. Traveling to new places is always uncertain to some extent. However, I couldn’t deny that part of me was more worried than usual. What would I see? How would I feel? What should I expect? Am I mature enough? Above all, the question was ‘why would I want to go visit Africa’? I cannot tell Uganda story leaving out the influence of Kimmie and Youth Action International. I actually met Kimmie at Northfield Mount Hermon High School where Kimmie graduated from.
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), an Acholi-based opposition group led by Joseph Kony has been fighting first against president Museveni’s government, and currently against other Acholi peoples. The Acholi are an ethnic group who live in Northern Uganda. Though Kony, leader of the LRA reportedly believes he has been chosen by God to overthrow president Museveni and establish a government based on the Ten Commandments, and a purified Acholi race, the LRA has yet to explain its goals or put forth any sort of political agenda.
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I wasn’t promised an African sunset. When Kimmie Weeks invited me on a humanitarian mission through post-conflict countries, what came to mind were the stunning landscape pictures my friends had brought back from the ranch in Kenya. It was how I had envisioned this beautiful continent. Streaks of red and orange, firing up the night sky of deep blue and purple: a kaleidoscope of color. Instead, I found another kind of sunset. I found the African people wasting away, dying brutal, horrific deaths at the hands of war, disease, and poverty. I found the sun setting on their lives. Not fading into the night with brilliant lights, but being shredded into a nonexistence wracked with pain and suffering. Continue reading
I traveled to Liberia and Sierra Leone with Kimmie Weeks during the summer of 2006 to assist him and carry out research for YAI. I am originally from Tanzania and was excited to visit west Africa. I was confident I would adjust to Sierra Leone pretty quickly, because hey, it was still Africa wasn’t it? And I’m half African. Continue reading
