From LearnServe Intern Romeo. An account of the LearnServe Summer Global Fellowship ‒ our first-ever virtual exchange program between students in Zambia and the United States.
I remember coming back from Zambia around this time last year. I was grateful to have actually experienced going out of the country and connecting with people from a different culture. It helped me grow as a person and eliminated stereotypes I held about Africa. However, this cohort of students won’t get to experience the same thing I did because of a pandemic that took us all by surprise.
When Sabine offered me the chance to intern in LearnServe’s first virtual exchange program between Americans and Zambians I jumped at the opportunity. I desperately missed Zambia, and this internship was a way to cope with that. I wondered how this program would work being online. One of the worries I had was how would American students learn about cultural differences in Zambia and vice-versa? This is something I enjoyed while in Zambia, and I thought the online approach might take away from that. I feared there might be a lack of cultural exchange, but I learned very quickly that I had nothing to fear.
One of our Zambian students Nchimunya wanted to address the lack of sexual education in his community, by creating an informative video. Another Zambian student Olly wanted to address the high percentage of divorce in Zambia. Samantha, an American student, wanted to inform her community about police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement through a website. Gracie, another American student, wanted to address climate change in her community by creating a planting workshop all about why climate change is so important.
Hearing the many students’ different ventures and creative solutions has inspired me, and it reminds me of when I was a LearnServe Fellow. Even though I do wish I had the chance to go to Zambia this year, this virtual program was still able to accomplish one of the main goals of the original trip. Zambians got to learn about American problems, and Americans got to learn about Zambian problems. Hopefully this learning eliminated some stereotypes they had about each other.
Romeo Philippe
College of Wooster
LearnServe Fellows 2019, Zambia 2019, and Intern 2020