About Grassroot Soccer

Mission: Grassroot Soccer uses the power of soccer to educate, inspire, and mobilize communities to stop the spread of HIV.

Vision: A world mobilized through soccer to prevent new HIV infections.

Strategy: To achieve our mission, we continuously improve our innovative HIV prevention and life-skills curriculum, share our program and concept effectively, and utilize the popularity of soccer to increase our impact.

http://www.grassrootsoccer.org/

Grassroot Video: Who We Are, What We Do.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Almost Ready

The past month has been a stressful whirlwind of me desperately scrambling to get ready to leave for South Africa.  I got my official placement in Port Elizabeth and have since been working to get my visa.  The problem with this is that South Africa requires a background check and asks for one from the FBI.  I sent in my info to the FBI and only afterwards discovered that they would need over 8 weeks to process my request.  By this deadline I would have already left the country - not a possibility.  So I got both a signed letter from the county affirming that I did not have a record and a print-out from the state police online data system saying the same.

Needless to say, these last minute issues really had me frazzled and i decided to go to Chicago in person to hand in my application and know then and there if there was going to be an issue with anything.  I arrived last Wednesday morning and handed over all my materials.  It literally took the woman working the desk 5 minutes to look through everything and tell me everything was good and they would mail me my passport back in 10 days.  So easy.  I just laughed at myself for how stressed out I had been the last week or so.

Now I am pretty much set to go.  Nate Thompson wrote a great article about my internship in the GH Tribune (http://www.grandhaventribune.com/content/coe%E2%80%99s-internship-work-uses-soccer-help-prevent-hivaids-africa) and I am hoping that will help kick-off my fundraising efforts.  I am headed to New Hampshire on the 2nd of August for orientation.  Next post, hopefully I will be onsite in Port Elizabeth.
Posted by at No comments:

Friday, May 20, 2011

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog!  I have created this to allow people to follow me during my time in southern Africa and, if so inclined, support me by donating (there is a button on the right side of the page).  While Grassroot Soccer generously provides housing, I am responsible for purchasing my airfare and for covering other expenses while abroad. Please help me cover the costs to intern for this amazing non-profit by donating today!  I will keep this blog updated for my readers to see pictures and hear about my work and my experiences outside of work.   Please stay in touch with me through this blog and I appreciate anything you can offer to help me through this coming year.
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)