February 14, 2005: Headlines: COS - Malawi: Anthropology: AIDS: HIV: AIDS Education: NGO's: Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Malawi RPCV Joseph Lanning founded the World Education Fund, a nonprofit foundation, in 1999. Since then the fund has sponsored 30 one-year scholarships for African children ages 14 to 20. All are AIDS orphans and many are girls — who by their gender and the constraints of their culture are often shut out of secondary school
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February 14, 2005: Headlines: COS - Malawi: Anthropology: AIDS: HIV: AIDS Education: NGO's: Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Malawi RPCV Joseph Lanning founded the World Education Fund, a nonprofit foundation, in 1999. Since then the fund has sponsored 30 one-year scholarships for African children ages 14 to 20. All are AIDS orphans and many are girls — who by their gender and the constraints of their culture are often shut out of secondary school
Malawi RPCV Joseph Lanning founded the World Education Fund, a nonprofit foundation, in 1999. Since then the fund has sponsored 30 one-year scholarships for African children ages 14 to 20. All are AIDS orphans and many are girls — who by their gender and the constraints of their culture are often shut out of secondary school
Malawi RPCV Joseph Lanning founded the World Education Fund, a nonprofit foundation, in 1999. Since then the fund has sponsored 30 one-year scholarships for African children ages 14 to 20. All are AIDS orphans and many are girls — who by their gender and the constraints of their culture are often shut out of secondary school
Everyday Angel: Africa on his mind
A UR grad's work at a poor Kenyan school inspired him to organize a scholarship fund
Corydon Ireland
Staff Writer
Caption: Joseph Lanning spent time in 1998 researching gender disparities at high schools in Kenya. Upon his return home, he decided to do something "meaningful and sustainable," so he created the World Education Fund. Photo: CARLOS ORTIZ staff photographer
(February 14, 2005) — At his desk at the University of Rochester, Joseph W. Lanning is a long way from Africa. But his heart is always with the continent that inspired him.
The 27-year-old UR anthropology graduate, now assistant director of admissions, turned inspiration into action. He was still an undergraduate in 1999 when he founded the World Education Fund, a nonprofit foundation.
Since then the fund has sponsored 30 one-year scholarships for African children ages 14 to 20. All are AIDS orphans and many are girls — who by their gender and the constraints of their culture are often shut out of secondary school.
The inspiration for the fund came in the fall of 1998, when Lanning spent a semester in Kenya to research gender disparities in high schools. For the ex-athlete from Fairport High School, the trip was a months-long epiphanic moment, full of insight and change.
He lived with rural families and for a time taught in a cash-strapped school, where boys outnumbered girls 20 to one. The world map on one wall was three decades old, but economic desperation was matched by a desperation to learn.
"I came back from that experience really wanting to do something — something meaningful and sustainable," said Lanning. He enlisted a lawyer friend to do the paperwork for a small foundation, knowing how far an American dollar can go in rural Africa.
Today, the average scholarship is $600. That modest sum buys a year of tuition at a private secondary school, with money left over for room and board, books, fees and uniforms. In its six years, the foundation has taken in $15,000, most of it in small donations. "It doesn't take much money to do a great deal of good," said Lanning.
The foundation, at first called the World Education Fund for Women, supported one African student the first year.
Six years later, "we have not spent a single penny for overhead," said Lanning, who takes offense that many large-scale foundations drain too much money into administration.
"He started modestly, just to make a difference," said Ayala Emmett, a UR associate professor of anthropology whose "jaw dropped" in 1999 when Lanning, a student of hers, shared his plans.
"I was struck by the way Joe took anthropology a step further," she said, and adopted what Margaret Meade called "public anthropology" — the act of going beyond scholarship to embrace civic action.
There is no big staff at the World Education Fund. Lanning works out of the campus apartment he shares with his wife, Alexis Spilman Lanning, a UR doctoral student in optics.
"My (fund) office is my filing cabinet at home and my personal computer," he said. The fund's board, including brother Benjamin Lanning of Victor, Ontario County, meets in the living room or a local bookstore.
"Joe is a visionary and very passionate about that vision," said the Rev. Brian Cool, director of UR's Catholic Newman Community, who has known Lanning for 12 years. "He's dedicated to a cause that's so admirable."
Lanning prefers a modest touch. "I'm a guy who had an idea," he said, "and found a lot of people who support making it real."
After graduating in 2000, Lanning joined the Peace Corps and served in Malawi, a landlocked nation in southern Africa, where the median age is 16 and 14 percent of adults are infected with HIV.
He had just met the woman he would marry, and she kept the fund going during his two years of service, most of it as an AIDS counselor in Gowa, a village without running water or electricity.
"You realize life (in Africa) is much richer than you see on TV," where images of starving infants and warriors and wildlife predominate, said Lanning. "But there are smiling teenagers and productive cities."
In the last two years, the fund has branched out, sponsoring cultural exchange trips for UR students to Malawi in the summer. They pay their own way.
"It was like a mini-Peace Corps," said Molly Menge, 24, of Rochester, who went last summer, 10 days after graduating from UR with a degree in brain and cognitive sciences.
A trip that transcends casual travel "breaks down stereotypes and breaks down cultural barriers," she said. "It makes you think about what you're valuing."
"It was a life-changing experience," said UR junior Arnab Datta, 20, who went on the same trip and came back inspired again to teach. One night in Gowa, he co-taught an extra-session mathematics course on vectors to eager African high-schoolers — by candlelight.
UR graduate student Jose Perillan went to Malawi with the Lanning group last summer — "a transformative experience," he said — and plans to go again this year.
"Wherever I go (in a career), I would like to help Joe make this a larger program," he said.
Lanning has large plans, expanding from the base of the World Education Fund. Included: Overseas student programs, funded by the travelers, that take in countries and cultures beyond Africa. And summer programs in Malawi and Kenya focusing on basic health education and vocational training.
"For a tsunami, everyone mobilizes," said Emmett of the typical way charity unfolds: grand and impermanent.
"But the kind of day-to-day tasks of making the world better are much more difficult," she said of Lanning's low-key brand of goodness. "It's heroic."
CIRELAND@DemocratandChronicle.com
When this story was posted in February 2005, this was on the front page of PCOL:
| The Peace Corps Library Peace Corps Online is proud to announce that the Peace Corps Library is now available online. With over 30,000 index entries in over 500 categories, this is the largest collection of Peace Corps related reference material in the world. From Acting to Zucchini, you can use the Main Index to find hundreds of stories about RPCVs who have your same interests, who served in your Country of Service, or who serve in your state. |
| WWII participants became RPCVs Read about two RPCVs who participated in World War II in very different ways long before there was a Peace Corps. Retired Rear Adm. Francis J. Thomas (RPCV Fiji), a decorated hero of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, died Friday, Jan. 21, 2005 at 100. Mary Smeltzer (RPCV Botswana), 89, followed her Japanese students into WWII internment camps. We honor both RPCVs for their service. |
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| Ask Not As our country prepares for the inauguration of a President, we remember one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century and how his words inspired us. "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." |
| Latest: RPCVs and Peace Corps provide aid Peace Corps made an appeal last week to all Thailand RPCV's to consider serving again through the Crisis Corps and more than 30 RPCVs have responded so far. RPCVs: Read what an RPCV-led NGO is doing about the crisis an how one RPCV is headed for Sri Lanka to help a nation he grew to love. Question: Is Crisis Corps going to send RPCVs to India, Indonesia and nine other countries that need help? |
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Story Source: Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Malawi; Anthropology; AIDS; HIV; AIDS Education; NGO's
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By margocrowther@aapt.net.au (61.68.88.134) on Sunday, July 10, 2005 - 11:31 pm: Edit Post |
A pure, beautiful human being, inspiring and uplifting to know there are people sincerely motivated to use there privelege and assetts to the good of humankind and have the awareness to prioritise that opportunity towards those most in need from there personal experience. I am rarely impressed. Thank you Joseph Lanning, for helping me one step further towards hope.
By Cricket (72-160-85-43.dyn.centurytel.net - 72.160.85.43) on Saturday, August 12, 2006 - 8:48 pm: Edit Post |
This is a very good fund! I often think about the people of the world who are AIDS orphans and those in need of help with their education. Joseph Lanning has done a wonderful thing in helping these people make a step towards achieving the goal of education! Keep up the great work, you are an inspiration to all around!
By Anonymous (193.220.46.70) on Wednesday, March 14, 2007 - 5:43 pm: Edit Post |
l want to hear from you about scholarships.thanks for helping needy people.am chikondi, currentry studying BSc in irrigation engineering.
By Ben-Bella (eassi.org - 81.199.23.142) on Tuesday, June 19, 2007 - 3:52 am: Edit Post |
Iam a lady aged 25, a rwandese by nationality but have been a refugee in Uganda, was born in Uganda, studied there for primary and high school, born in a family of 7 children, have both parents but not educated and totally a poor family, i got a chance went for university in Rwanda on government scholarship, my sister also went to Makerere university on an individual's support for four years, now we have a young brother who finished high
school and would like to join university but we have no funds, though we have finished but we have not yet got jobs that can help us raise money for our young sisters and brothers. My question is would you be kind enough and sponsor him wherever you would want him to go for his undergraduate.
Thank you.
Ben-Bella, currently doing internship at EASSI in Uganda on rights of women that will end mid December 2007.
By Anonymous (193.220.46.206) on Sunday, October 07, 2007 - 8:24 am: Edit Post |
I am a Malawian youngman aged 28 and currently pursuing a Masters program in African Social History at Chancellor College. For the past year, I have been sponsoring myself with the little I get from my salary but thing are getting unbearable now especially that I have to meet the tuition on my own, accomodation, food, transportation etc. I need some assistance from well wishers. For details, reply via the e-mail address below.
I am a 18year old Malawian whom currenlty i'm pursing for a dgree in political leadership at The Catholic University of Malawi.In the past months i have been trying to source funds for my education through part-time jobs but i'm just in my first year so,though i have been geeting some little funds, this has been affecting my education in a negative way. i have a parent who is the sister of my mother who also expect me to help her at home with the other relatives.i would like to ask if you could assist me in any way to finish my education