Volunteers seek Jewish way to serve in Africa

:: jpost :: Here in this humid and leafy village in eastern Uganda 20 minutes from the Kenyan border, 16 American college students sit in a circle. They are protected by the shade of a straw thatch structure adjacent to the complex where they have been living for the past month.

It is the afternoon of Tisha B'Av, the summer fast day marking a series of Jewish calamities, and the students are contemplating the meaning of hunger, of suffering. This year, however, it means something different now that they have witnessed such things firsthand: extreme poverty, rampant (and often curable) disease, hunger, a lack of education, employment opportunities and hope.

"I have had a hard time comprehending what we read in Eicha and what we are seeing in Uganda," says Judith Frank, 22, a Mount Holyoke College political science major, referring to the tract about ancient Jerusalem's destruction that the group read the previous night. "I have a hard time connecting it to what we are seeing here, that people are suffering."

But connecting Jewish texts, Jewish philosophy and Jewish identity to suffering in the developing world is all part of the mission of the American Jewish World Service, which sends about $13 million overseas each year to fund 400 grantees in 36 countries in Africa, the Americas and Asia.

The AJWS has also sent more than 3,000 Jewish volunteers to work with local NGOs around the world, either alone or in groups, on short- and long-term projects. It sends high school, college and post-college students, and rabbinic and community delegations.

By sending volunteers, AJWS aims to implement the Jewish value of 'tikkun olam', or repairing the world -- to commit Jews to social justice and inspire passion about their role as "global citizens."

"The rabbis and the Jewish leaders have discussed the balance between helping Jews and non-Jews," says Ruth Messinger, the president of AJWS. "It doesn't say, 'Build justice just for Jews.'"

It seems like Jewish summer camp here in Uganda as Tisha B'av comes to a close and the AJWS group sits around reading, writing in journals, playing cards, talking and waiting for the fast to end on this rare mid-week day of rest. This camp has no running water and only intermittent electricity; it has mosquito netting to prevent malaria (one girl caught it, but was better a few days later) and a tough work schedule, with participants building a school and putting the roof on a church in conjunction with the Uganda Orphans Rural Development Programme, a local NGO.

This is exactly the type of program -- volunteering in a developing country under basic living conditions with a group of Jewish peers in a Jewish context -- that drew these unusually idealistic and enthusiastic participants from all walks of Jewish life.

"I wanted to travel and go to Africa and I preferred service, because I wouldn't have seen the culture. I felt volunteering was a better conduit," says Leran Minc, 23, a self-described agnostic raised by Israeli parents. A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, Minc, like many participants, was involved at school in protesing genocide.

Volunteers seek Jewish way to serve in Africa

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