Local youth head to Africa

The students on the trip will perform a show and do community service. Twenty-six young people from the tri-state area will leave for Africa on August 1 as part of a program sponsored by the Forerunners International Institute -- an organization founded by 1971 Wharton School graduate Reginald Walker. Participants in the America's Gift to Africa Tour range in age from 14 to 18 and come from diverse backgrounds. Their two week trip to Africa will include visits to the Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Philadelphia's sister city of Douala, Cameroon. While in Douala, they will present "A Journey to Freedom" -- a dynamic show depicting African cultural contributions to America -- in addition to performing community service and living with host families. Reginald Walker -- the Institute's Chairperson -- said the trip gives young people an opportunity to "physically and existentially reconnect with their roots and develop a sense of self-worth." Institute President Gerri Walker noted that the community service projects and live performance were added to the program this year. "Through our outreach to over 500 children and our audition process, we've brought together a mixture of some of the finest young people I've ever seen," she said. "Some have overt talent and some have latent talent, but more importantly they are all open to new positive experiences and are in touch with their humanity." Gerri Walker explained that the America's Gift to Africa Tour is the first cultural exchange between the two cities and the first time a group will travel from Philadelphia to Douala. The two white females participating in Gift to Africa Tour this year are the first white students to take xx in the program. Reginald Walker explained that he believes it is necessary for white students to visit Africa because "for years white people denied the humanity of Africans to justify the peculiar institution of slavery." He emphasized the need to "confront the problem where it began when whites and blacks first interacted in Africa.' "The white and black students will be welcomed equally in Africa because Africans have no consciousness of color," he said. "That developed in the U.S. as a defense to white color consciousness." The program requires participants to raise their own funds to pay for the trip. "We live in a free enterprise system," Reginald Walker explained. "They have to believe in themselves and ask others to believe with them and make an investment in their lives." Reginald Walker -- who studied international business, marketing and the development of African countries at Wharton -- founded the Institute in 1989 to promote racial and cultural tolerance, mutual understanding, respect and trust between the youth of America and the people of Africa. "I recognized the need for African students in America to go back to the source of their humanity and discover their lost identity in order to promote their personal growth and development," he said. The Institute has conducted previous trips to Africa, convened two World Conferences of African Students and sponsored an annual African Day celebration for the past six years.

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