My name is Frank Stiefel and I am a sophomore majoring in Political Science and African/African-American Studies. I am currently the Southeast Regional Outreach Coordinator for STAND (Students Take Action Now: Darfur) and the Social Justice Intern at the Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life. This past summer I interned at the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office in New York City and served as their Darfur associate. I am hoping in the future to continue my studies in African affairs at graduate school and possibly work with an NGO that promotes advocacy in and on behalf of Africa.
Service learning has always been a huge part of my life and has continued to shape me as a global citizen. During my senior year in high school, I volunteered in Ghana for five weeks, helping to teach a class of first graders English. While serving as a teacher’s assistant in Ghana, I learned an enormous amount about the culture that existed in the country and how friendly the people living there were. My experience in Ghana changed my life forever and inspired me to become an African/African-American Studies major.
My trip to Ghana, however, is only one small aspect of my service-learning experience. Throughout the past four years of my life, I have been involved with the organization STAND (a student led division of the Genocide Intervention Network). As a member of STAND, I have helped to bring speakers like John Prendergast on campus and have worked with other schools throughout the Southeast region to raise awareness about various human rights crisis’s throughout the world. Currently I am the Southeast Regional Outreach Coordinator for STAND and have been working to collaborate with chapters at various campuses throughout the region on forcing the U.S. government to take more decisive action to stopping the genocide in Darfur and the human rights crisis’s in the Congo and Burma.
My study abroad program to South Africa will continue my service-learning experience and help me continue my research on African/African-American studies. I am excited to travel to South Africa because of the rich history it possesses. I believe that by traveling to some of the landmarks in South Africa, I will be able to see firsthand how the history of South Africa shaped how its society currently exists today.