News

Abdullahi Mire, a native of Somalia who fled violence at the age of three with his mother and two siblings and spent 23 years in a refugee camp in Kenya, was recently named as this year’s Nansen Global Laureate, the UN Refugee Agency’s highest honor. 

Ron Aminzade, a retired sociology professor at the Universities of Wisconsin and Minnesota, met Melaku Belay, an Ethiopian dancer and director of the Fendika Cultural Center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2020 when Belay was performing at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis. It was the beginning of an impactful friendship that is making a difference for children and adults in Ethiopia.

Books For Africa recently partnered with sponsor Greg Davis, the Pastoral Women Council, and Emanyata School to get a shipment of books to Loliondo, Tanzania. This shipment included a Girls Empowerment Collection and a special add-on of a Swahili-language maternal and women’s health book!

"The toughest job you'll ever love" was the old slogan in Peace Corps PSAs. The public service announcements still ring true for former and future volunteers, Peace Corps Director Carol Spahn says. It "resonates with anyone who has ever served in the Peace Corps, because it so directly speaks to not just how challenging it is, but just how transformational it is." Including for Spahn herself, who served in post-Cold War Romania from 1994 to 1996 as a small-business adviser. Later, before her 2022 ascension to director, she held other organizational roles, including chief of operations in the Africa region.

United States Peace Corps Director Carol Spahn said during a recent Minnesota visit that she’s focused on reinvigorating the Corps after operations were suspended as the pandemic unfolded in March of 2020, leading to the evacuation of over 7,000 volunteers across the world. 

“The Books for Africa Jack Mason Law & Democracy Initiative is a truly remarkable and visionary endeavor,” said Donna Gollmer, director of ABA Publishing. “The opportunity to join Thomson Reuters in supporting Books for Africa by providing court systems, bar associations, women’s legal organizations and law schools across Africa with essential law books is a powerful way to support both the Rule of Law and access to justice.”