Africn Program Updates Methods

Twenty Harvard students will leave in June for Africa, where they will spend a year doing volunteer work in varlous social programs, craft schools, and hospitals.

This year, the volunteers are trying to update the program by obtaining jobs which require more community involvement.

Volunteer Teachers in Africa (VTA), which is associated with Phillips Brooks House, is sending the students, "Having no affiliation with the U.S. government, VTA has been able to work in the politically-heated area of refugee relief," explained David G. Sogge '70, co-director and one of this year's volunteers.

The VTA program, which was started in 1960, used to emphasize the teaching of African history and English. A refugee school set up by a volunteer in Tanzannia is now an established school of over 200 students.

One of the VTA returnees, however, does not feel that the Harvard students do much good in Africa. "Jobs such as teaching and administrative work were important four years ago, but now this teaching is so often paternalistic," J. Toby Sackton '70 said. He was a 1966-68 volunteer.

Not Paternal

Sogge denied that the program was paternalistic. "We do not go to Africa to help uplift the native people." Sogge said.

"We are naive, but not so much so that we feel we will make a considerable contribution to African development. All any of us hope to do is provide some labor, skills, and knowledge over a limited time," he added.