Convocation: Jacob Lief

"Ubuntu: A Community Approach to Sustainable Development in Africa." Two men of different race and generation - one South African, one American - are partners in a common cause. From a chance meeting in South Africa in 1998, Jacob Lief and Banks Gwaxula came to realize that they shared more than a common interest in soccer. The two shared an abiding belief in the power of education. During a trip to South Africa in the summer before his senior year of college, Lief was invited by Banks to live in his home as family and work with him as a teacher in his township school. Through this experience, he learned that the township schools lacked resources taken for granted in even the poorest communities in the United States. He also witnessed firsthand people overcoming the desperation of poverty through the power of community. In the Xhosa language of South Africa, the word ubuntu refers to the belief in a universal bond of brotherhood and sharing. So it is fitting that when, six months later, Lief created a non-profit organization to improve education conditions in the black townships of that country, he named it the Ubuntu Education Fund. Today Ubuntu is reaching over 40,000 children with life-saving health and educational resources and services.