Volunteer Adventure Corps

Allow me to introduce you to Miriam Makeba, who was also known as Mama Afrika. Makeba was a Grammy-award-winning singer and anti-apartheid activist who lived in exile in various countries around the world for 30 years until returning to the country in 1991. Makeba started touring Europe in America in the late 50s and became an exile in 1960 when South Africa banned her from returning because she was deemed to be "too dangerous and revolutionary." In 1967 "Pata Pata", one of Makeba's more popular songs, was released in the United States and became an international hit. Makeba became an instant...

Helen Zille is the leader of the political party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), which is the largest opposition party in South Africa (The African National Congress, or ANC, has been in power since 1994). Prior to entering politics in 1999, Zille was a journalist and anti-apartheid activist and famously exposed the truth behind the death of Steve Biko (another South African whom I will profile in future). Zille is a vocal critic of South African President Jacob Zuma and the ANC, and frequently finds herself amidst political controversy because her rhetoric is quite blunt. Some South Africans refer to her ...

"Since leaving glorious Cape Town in August 2009, I've been busy writing and editing in Baltimore, Maryland. My internship with The Big Issue magazine only reaffirmed my love of writing and passion for journalism. This year--my junior year--I worked as the Managing Editor for Loyola University Maryland's Greyhound student newspaper (of which I'll be Editor in Chief next year). I also accepted a position with College magazine (CollegeMagazine.com) in September 2009 as their E-newsletter Editor, a post I'll still hold my senior year of college. I've also spent a great deal of time freelancing, selling my fi...

I am happy to report after quite some time since my last post that VAC has been doing better than ever, with more to look forward to in the very near future. Today, for example, we welcomed Hannah to the VAC community!  Hannah arrived yesterday from South Dakota, having recently graduated from the University of Nebraska.  We are excited for her to begin her internship at Shake Interactive (www.shakeinteractive.com), a unique and cutting edge digital consultancy company.  Shake Interactive will give Hannah the opportunity to learn about the rapidly growing world of digital co...

It was the great pleasure of the Volunteer Adventure Corps to host Eric Taylor, a senior from the University of Oregon's school of journalism and communication, in Cape Town as a participant of our professional internship program from January to March, 2008. Having studied video production and documentary film at journalism school, we placed Eric at Edit Café as a video post-production assistant. A link to their company website can be found here: (http://www.editcafe.co.za/). Edit Café really enjoyed Eric's incredible enthusiasm (so did we!!) and gave him access to their video cameras and ed...

It gives me great excitement to announce the launch of our internship program soccer team, VAC FC (Volunteer Adventure Corps Football Club). We hired Andrew Ndwanya as our player/coach (see his head coach photo included in this entry in addition to a photo of our team jersey), and practices have been an absolute blast under his leadership. Andrew has given our team the Xhosa name, "Amabhubezi," which translates to the "Lions." At VAC, we are committed to creating extracurricular opportunities for our interns that promote community interaction and cultural exposure. Our intent with VAC FC is the creation o...

With almost a third of the year behind us, I finally find time to do some more writing about the exciting developments at VACorps! In the past few months I’ve received several requests for participant testimonials, so do keep an eye out for the appearance of a “testimonials” section on the main page of our website (www.vacorps.com). Truthfully, I rather despise the testimonial pages found on many internship program/ study abroad websites. After reading the first five to ten testimonials, you often get the feeling they have been written by the same person, or more likely, have been manipulated someh...

Wow, have we been busy at VACorps over the past three weeks! On the 30th of December, we greeted Professor Jan Brooks and her 11 students from the University of Illinois at Cape Town International Airport. For 17 days, Jan and her students traveled around Cape Town with the help of our driver, Sly, following an agenda created by Sean, Jan and her teaching assistant/ daughter Jessica in the months leading up to the group’s arrival. The itinerary incorporated a healthy mixture of tourism and volunteer work in addition to lectures by activists and community leaders in Cape Town. The trip was an overwhelming ...

As the year comes to a close, I wanted to reflect upon the amazing year we've had at the Volunteer Adventure Corps (www.vacorps.com)! We originally designed our international internship program to attract the best and brightest participants from across the world. I am happy to say, almost two years after the inception of our professional internship program, we have achieved this goal! For a shining example of our incredible 2007 participant base, I need look no further than to Christine Nichols, who worked as a marketing intern at La Couronne Wine Estate in Franschoek, South Africa. Christine made such an...