It's day two in the lead-up to the launch of the African Education Program's new "look!" Today, we are diving into our past and what brought the organization to where we are now.

Some of you may remember, in August 2006, as African Education Program volunteers, my mom (Board Member Marie-Odile Savarit, but better known as Momma Mario) and I traveled for a second time to Kafue, Zambia. With community leaders and youth members, we opened the organization’s flagship Learning & Leadership Center, named Amos Youth Centre.

At first, volunteers oversaw the center and only twenty or thirty students utilized the resources. Today, a full-time team of eighteen makes it possible for over seven hundred children and youth to access unique programs at the center daily.

To read more about the journey from day one until today, you won’t want to miss this blog post. Stay tuned! Tomorrow is the big day!

I’m so excited to share that on Friday, the African Education Program will be launching a new “look” complete with our new logo, website and messaging. We believe that this revamped branding truly represents the organization that the African Education Program is today. It also more clearly communicates our commitment to working with our supporters to create sustainable and transformational change in the communities that we currently serve in Zambia and how we plan to grow our impact across the country and region.

To introduce our new branding, we are excited to share a series of three blogs, this being the first. On Friday, we will officially launch our new “look”.

Today is all about celebrating how far the African Education Program has come since its founding in 2004. And to thank our supporters for making this journey possible!

To have an opportunity to study abroad in the United States is just a dream for many Zambian youth. For Ngambela and Maureen, the two students who have been awarded a scholarship to study in New York this coming Fall, it is an awakening moment, an opportunity that both will live to tell about and remember for years to come.

The Read for Rose Special Education Program has continued to expand its holistic approach in its programs and activities with the children and the families that it serves. Febby Choombe, Director of Special Education, recently started a brand new program that will open the communication barrier that exists in the homes of families with children who are living with a speech and hearing impairment.