The Global Child – Through the Eyes of a Volunteer: A Conversation with Annette Scarpitta

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Our world needs to listen and learn of girls and mothers raped and then provide education and counseling, children who attend schools, with no desks, textbooks, literature books, internet access, or even developmentally appropriate educational resources. As individuals we need to speak up and speak out and volunteer to change the status quo.

If you could volunteer your time to give back to your community, or to a developing country how would you begin? Where do you learn and then integrate the many nonprofit skills and knowledge required in order to be an effective social change agent? My guest, is a photo editor by day with an M.A. in History. Annette Scarpitta is an impassioned advocate for social justice in developing communities throughout the world. She has provided support for literacy education for women in Afghanistan, a school for girls in a remote Kenyan village, and, most recently, education for the children of rape victims in a worn torn area of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In all her international endeavors, Annette looks for opportunities for hands-on involvement. In 2006 she headed an annual fundraiser for Kabultec, a a non-governmental organization offering couples’ literacy classes and orphanage support in Afghanistan, eventually serving on the Kabultec board.

The Association of Christian Mothers for Assistance to Vulnerables, provides counseling, social reintegration, clothing, school fees, and network-generating activities for raped women and their children in Democratic Republic of Congo. Annette with the nonprofit’s director is a project co-leader for “Educate 150 Children of Rape Victims in Democratic Republic of Congo”

Annette was also the honored recipient of the 2013 Innovative Social Justice Program award from the Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice “for her years of initiation, devotion, and creativity in addressing global human needs.”

If you volunteer or want to volunteer, this is one show, which you do not want to miss.