Back at home in London after her three-month placement with Skillshare International in Tanzania, Bintu Foday has continued to get actively involved in campaigning and fundraising for social change.
On 1st December 2011, Bintu and other members of the Red Cross society at her university organised an event to mark World AIDS Day by raising awareness of HIV and AIDS:
"The main motivation was being in Tanzania and seeing the amount of people that have the disease and the amount of people that die from it every week. I decided to organise a range of events on the day to allow lots of students to attend.
We designed several banners with HIV facts from around the world and ran a stall giving out condoms, selling posters and inviting people to cut out a hand and write a message about AIDS on it, and we pasted that up on a big board. We also had people around campus with banners, a bucket of condoms and ribbons. We sold the ribbons for a pound and gave out condoms.
At 12pm, my team went out in the square and gathered people together to make a human ribbon. It was great to have an event like this which didn’t just raise money but also helped raise awareness of HIV. We were able to reach more than 500 students and lecturers and I hope to organise another event on International Women’s Day to celebrate the work of women around the world especially the Maasai women I worked with in Tanzania."
Bintu volunteered with Skillshare International as part of the International Citizen Service (ICS) initiative, funded by the Department for International Development. ICS gives volunteers aged 18-22 the opportunity to spend three life-changing months working on projects designed to bring about lasting change, and supports them to get involved in UK action when they return home. Bintu is studying at Norwich Business School (UEA) and is president of the university's Red Cross society.
Find out more about our ICS placements and apply online.
Meet more of Skillshare International's ICS volunteers.
Read more about Bintu's placement with Skillshare International in Tanzania.