FOR AFRICA benefit recognized as VCU’s 'Currents of Change' award winner

By Mike Porter

Virginia Commonwealth University on Friday recognized FOR AFRICA, a benefit to support children in Ghana, as the “Currents of Change” award winner among community engagement programs.

FOR AFRICA organizers were honored during a ceremony at the Siegel Center as part of VCU’s 40th anniversary celebration. President Eugene P. Trani said the award will become an annual event to honor the university’s legacy of community engagement.

FOR AFRICA raised nearly $50,000 for a school and orphanage in Ghana. Organized and coordinated by Chris Burnside, former assistant dean of student affairs in VCU's School of the Arts, FOR AFRICA featured three nights of performances, a silent auction and an African market. The benefit was a collaborative project of the VCU School of Social Work, School of the Arts, Peacework, Inc. and artists in the Richmond area.

Burnside came up with the idea for the benefit after joining VCU School of Social Work Professor Randi Buerlein and her students on a trip to Ghana in January 2006. He was deeply impacted by both the poverty he saw in Ghana and the intense joy he witnessed in the people who live there.

Buerlein has led groups of VCU students, alumni and supporters to Ghana for years. And since 2002, she and her students have supported the work of Sovereign Global Mission, a non-governmental organization that serves homeless street children and rural children who can’t afford to go to school. 

FOR AFRICA’s success allowed organizers to donate $30,000 directly to construction of the child development center, which will serve as a home and school for street children and children living in the rural village of Adoteiman, Ghana.  

Money raised by FOR AFRICA is also supporting children at the school through the purchase of books and uniforms.

Burnside and Buerlein received glass sculptures that depict the ripples that form when a pebble hits water, which is meant to symbolize the effect a university-community partnership can have on the broader community.  The sculpture was created by Jack Wax, professor and head of the Glass Program in the School of the Arts, and two of his former graduate students.

FOR AFRICA also was among VCU’s “40 Acts of Caring,” which include volunteer and community-service projects, community-based research, and service-learning projects and represent 22 units on the Monroe Park and MCV campuses. It was from the “40 Acts of Caring” that a Currents of Change award winner was selected.