The African Leadership Academy and other goings-on

Yesterday at AMIDEAST we had a great meeting with the head of SIT Study Abroad, Mary Lou Forward. They are starting a new program in Tunis this Spring, and AMIDEAST and CEMAT are helping to administrate the program. As it stands right now, I'll be helping out with cultural issues/student support, and we'll see what happens after that - hopefully I'll be accompanying them on excursions as well. Personally, I'm getting very interested in International Education as a field, so this is a great opportunity to continue to immerse myself in that world and see where it goes. For me, I've been able to benefit from several exchange programs, so I'd like to help others do the same.

Today, two young directors from the brand-new African Leadership Academy are here. Now this is a cool program. Their aim is to take 2-4 students from every African Country for the last two years of High School at their campus in Johannesburg. The program is fully funded (and quite well so, at that) and the head of the board of directors is Nelson Mandela. The problem in Francophone Africa is that the school is not on the Baccalaureate System, so there's a risk involved for Bac students (if they want to continue studying on the French system). Of course, in theory they could go to the states, but that involves a significant financial outlay. I hope the issues will be be worked out, because it's a great program with some dynamic ideas.