As part of our continuing commitment to Peace Corps activities around the world, each year AARPCV raises funds to contribute to volunteer projects through the Peace Corps Partnership Program. The International Committee searches for potential funding opportunities, specifically targeting those projects submitted by PCVs from the state of Georgia.

AARPCV contributed $1035.71 to a school library project at the Professional School of Ocua, a secondary school in Mozambique. With these funds, the request for $1135.71 from PCV Lisa DiAndreth was fulfilled. Lisa later wrote:

One of the most striking differences between my new Mozambican school and American schools was the lack of resources. Never mind computers and sciencelabs, my new school didn’t even have books. Not one student, nor even the teachers, had any access to textbooks. There are few printed materials to begin with- no newspapers, magazines, or books – and so generally literacy is low. I realized after the first few months of teaching what a huge impact access to books can have on learning. The only information my students had to study off of was what they’d copied by hand off the chalkboard into their notebook during class time. Besides being enormously time consuming, if they’d made any mistakes they had no way to check a reference and would simply learn it wrong, not due to a lack of motivations but a lack of necessary resources. I decided right away one of the biggest impacts I could have on my students, school, and community would be to get books to Ocua.  With your support and donations, I was able to purchase over 300 brand new updated books for the school. Escola Profissional de Ocua now has textbooks for every discipline as well as simple reading books in both Portuguese and English. I cannot begin to describe how excited the students and teachers are to have access to this resource. You have helped to give opportunities to kids who simply wouldn’t have them any other way.