Heather Elgin, 2010 Teach with Africa fellow, works with a class here in Cape Town, South Africa. When not in South Africa, Elgin is an elementary school teacher at the Katherine Delmar Burke School in San Francisco.

Early last week I headed to the LEAPSA (graduates of LEAP Schools) leadership camp. This was a powerful experience in terms of building relationships, witnessing the formation of an organization by a most formidable group of young people, and practicing my own leadership skills.

By the middle of the second day I felt (and later shared with them) that this is a group of powerful agents of change who have the potential to support each other, change their communities, and change their country.

I couldn’t help but make a connection between the brainstorming and collegiality I was witnessing with the first chapters of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography wherein he describes the relationships, discourse, and activism he participated in as a young person.

How honored I am to have been welcomed into the LEAPSA family.

Every donation helps send another educator like Heather to both teach and learn in South Africa.