Our Practicum students begin arriving today! Are you interested in becoming a part of their experience here? Read more below in the article that appears in the Summer 2010 Journal, which will be mailed this week.

Each year, community leaders from developing countries come to the SIFAT campus in rural Alabama for 10 intensive weeks to learn appropriate technologies and self-help skills to make a difference in their villages and cities. We refer to them as students, but their ages range from early 20s to late 60s. Some are pastors, while others run nonprofit organizations. All of our students care deeply about their communities and want to learn ways to foster community development and self-help.

During the Practicum, students learn to purify water, make rooftop gardens, build simple water pumps, make low-cost reading glasses for literacy programs, preserve foods, improve child survival, promote safe motherhood, foster microenterprise and small loans, build fuel-efficient cookstoves, prevent tropical diseases and much more. They also learn how to organize communities for action and write project proposals.

We need your help! Would you give or raise a $500 scholarship to enable a student to be trained from Vietnam, the Philippines, India, Thailand, Zambia, the Congo (DRC) and other countries? We have several potential students hoping and praying to be able to come this year to be empowered to return and help others.

Your $500 is a long-term investment in a community leader who returns home to share all that he or she has learned. It is a blessing to see the results and fruit continue to bear from SIFAT alumni through the years. Please contact Kathy at brysonk@sifat.org for more information. Please designate your gift “scholarship fund”.