“I knew at some point in my life I wanted to go see Africa and learn about the people, not just the animals.” Astone earned an undergraduate degree in political science from Barnard College, then joined the Peace Corps and was sent to a village in Senegal because she spoke French. “It was a real eye opener.” There was no plumbing, the adults were illiterate. The market was an eight-mile walk away. “It was a very humbling experience, and very exciting,” she said. She worked to identify the needs of the village and get funding for projects, helping villagers make a living through local crafts including furniture making. Her French, as it turned out, did not help her. “No one in my village spoke French,” she said.
She earned a doctorate in anthropology from Binghamton University in New York, where she continued to study the African continent and the causes of its poverty. In her studies, she was exposed to the views of anthropologists who stressed that people seeking to help underdeveloped parts of the world should set aside their preconceptions about how to “help,” and instead ask the local folks to identify their needs. She performed field work in three African villages. She studied archival economic information including records from tax collectors. She interviewed elders. She developed a greater understanding of Africa’s complex issues, learning how colonialism, labor migration and World War II contributed to the continent’s poverty. She deepened her understanding of the world as a “smaller,” interconnected place, studying how Africans helped ease the Allies’ rubber shortages during World War II, and how they helped fight the Axis on the Belgian front. She became a program officer for the Global Fund for Women, working in the area of women’s human rights. She became more involved in the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and met Kerry Olson, founder and president of the then-recently-launched Firelight Foundation. In 2000, he asked her to join the foundation’s advisory board, which she did. In April 2001, she became the foundation’s first director.
Senegal RPCV Jennifer Astone devotes herself to the “AIDS orphans” of sub-Saharan Africa as Director of the Firelight Foundation
Optimist for Africa, Part II
Hermosa native Jennifer Astone is the farthest thing from a dour do-gooder as she devotes herself to the “AIDS orphans” of sub-Saharan Africa
by Robb Fulcher
Caption: Jennifer Astone enjoys the Hermosa Beach breeze. Photo by Robb Fulcher
Makokha told an interviewer that as late as the mid-1990s, the scarcity of information about HIV was so severe that some people in the region thought, “If you jumped over a shadow of somebody with AIDS you could get AIDS.”
World AIDS Day 1998 brought many changes, she said. Women who previously “died quietly” under the double burden of the virus and a heavy social stigma, began joining together to combat HIV and find ways to aid their distressed communities.
One 17-year-old girl praised REEP for teaching her how to make and sell clothes, and teaching her that it is unprotected sex that spreads AIDS.
More video from Zambia shows a grant recipient called Children’s Town, which was developed to help street children, and as of 2005 had more than 350 kids attending its community school and more than 5,500 receiving outreach services. Children’s Town exists within, and relies heavily upon, the support of the surrounding community.
Into Africa
As Astone strolled on the Hermosa Beach sands during a visit to her old stomping grounds, she told of her childhood curiosity about Africa and her adult commitment to easing its woes.
Astone grew up in “a great neighborhood” in Hermosa, on 17th Street near the water. She was thick as thieves with kids from five or six of the neighborhood families who surfed and swam, and hung at each other’s houses. “We had the annual 17th Street volleyball tournament, we did Junior Lifeguards,” she said.
Astone counted her blessings, and she was aware that the count was larger for her than for some others.
“We were aware that others were not as well off as we were. It wasn’t just my family, others had this consciousness as well,” she said.
In high school, Astone became fascinated with animals, including the wildlife of Africa. She watched National Geographic television specials and “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.” She grew curious about Africa in general, but ran across little non-animal information.
“You would read about Idi Amin and Uganda. But in history classes, we studied the U.S. and European history, and when you picked up the morning newspaper you didn’t see much about the politics or history or culture of Africa. I would learn about the animals and think, where are the people in all of this?” she said.
“I knew at some point in my life I wanted to go see Africa and learn about the people, not just the animals.”
Astone earned an undergraduate degree in political science from Barnard College, then joined the Peace Corps and was sent to a village in Senegal because she spoke French.
“It was a real eye opener.” There was no plumbing, the adults were illiterate. The market was an eight-mile walk away. “It was a very humbling experience, and very exciting,” she said.
She worked to identify the needs of the village and get funding for projects, helping villagers make a living through local crafts including furniture making.
Her French, as it turned out, did not help her.
“No one in my village spoke French,” she said.
She returned from Senegal and went to work for the African Development Foundation in Washington, D.C.
She earned a doctorate in anthropology from Binghamton University in New York, where she continued to study the African continent and the causes of its poverty. In her studies, she was exposed to the views of anthropologists who stressed that people seeking to help underdeveloped parts of the world should set aside their preconceptions about how to “help,” and instead ask the local folks to identify their needs.
She performed field work in three African villages. She studied archival economic information including records from tax collectors. She interviewed elders.
She developed a greater understanding of Africa’s complex issues, learning how colonialism, labor migration and World War II contributed to the continent’s poverty. She deepened her understanding of the world as a “smaller,” interconnected place, studying how Africans helped ease the Allies’ rubber shortages during World War II, and how they helped fight the Axis on the Belgian front.
She took a job teaching in the U.S., lecturing at California State University Monterey Bay, but she did not stay.
“I missed Africa,” she said.
She became a program officer for the Global Fund for Women, working in the area of women’s human rights. She became more involved in the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and met Kerry Olson, founder and president of the then-recently-launched Firelight Foundation. In 2000, he asked her to join the foundation’s advisory board, which she did. In April 2001, she became the foundation’s first director.
“Since then I’ve had quite the ride,” she said.
The donor list continued to grow, and after three years of support mostly from individuals, entities such as the Johnson & Johnson Foundation and the Elton John AIDS Foundation came on board.
“Our work resonates with the donors,” she said.
