 Hi, my name is Michael Williams, I'm a native of Detroit, Michigan, and I'm a senior in the College of Elton, A. in the Honors Program in Afro-American and African Studies. And thanks to the Wallenberg Fellowship, I was able to embark on a trip to South Africa last summer in May of 2012 to do a program called the Pedagogy of Action where I believe I was able to embody the humanitarian spirit of Laurel Wallenberg through the lessons of empowerment. On the service level, it appears that I ventured on a study of broad trip with my department, the Department of Afro-American and African Studies, along with my professor, Dr. Nisha Anif. However, the pedagogy of action was far more than a typical study of broad trip. Really, we use HIV prevention and capacity building as a lens to engage in the work of empowerment, empowerment of self and empowerment of community. The program itself is designed, as I said, around an HIV education module that was developed by Dr. Nisha Anif. Dr. Anif started the program about 12 years ago, 2001, and started taking undergraduate, graduate students, even faculty members alike, to her home country of Jamaica. And eventually, she changed the program to venture to South Africa during the spring and summer. Using this HIV education module, we engaged in the work of HIV prevention and learned what it really meant to connect with everyday people and to engage in the work of sustainable practice. However, going to South Africa was part of the last leg of the trip. The program itself is three semesters, and it starts in the fall semester with a course in Women's Studies and African American Studies, and a course entitled the Pedagogy of Empowerment. We really learned about activism and race, gender, HIV and health, and we learned a lot of the foundational principles that would have been to prepare us for study abroad in the spring. We also first practiced the HIV oral methodology within our own communities. In the winter term, we took another course that prepared us for praxis and engagement in the field before going to South Africa. It was in this winter course that we mastered the module and we actively prepared to engage in the global community. A lot of the ideologies of this program are grounded in radical feminist and proletarian activism. A key text for our studies was Paulo Freire's The Pedagogy of Oppressed. And it's under this tutelage and this pedagogy that the program has been able to reach over 10,000 individuals in township community groups and schools in Jamaica and South Africa since 2001. The module we use, as I said, is a completely oral module. It's about a 15-minute presentation. And the point of it is that we can teach low-literate and typically low-income communities and we can reach out to people who do not have to read or write. And the module itself, since it does deal with HIV, still covers complex scientific processes. However, it does so in a very straightforward way that strays away from large, complex scientific terms and things that can typically confuse people. So it really engages in trying to get the audience and the learners to understand the material. Also the module discusses why certain strategies work rather than just telling the participants to use them. It's a newest way that it diverts from the slogan campaigns like the ABC campaign that simply tells constituents to abstain, use condoms, and to use birth control. A key part of the module also is that we have the learners teach the module back to the teacher immediately after it's been taught to them. Following that, they also translate into their home language. It's in both of these cases we're able to address and confront the hegemony of English. And it's also through this style of pedagogy we're able to engage in the work of empowerment and reduction of stigma. And we do this to encourage faithfulness to self, to community, and to the alleviation of the virus. The pedagogy of action is more than just teaching. We do have the opportunity to teach at several schools, community organizations, research institutions, as we taught in Johannesburg, Durbin, which is on the east of South Africa, as well as the rural, quiz-able, and metal region where the epidemic is at hardest in the country and arguably the world. However, outside of teaching, we engage with a lot of the everyday people of South Africa, whether they're artist activists or activists who help to bring down the right of apartheid, like Ahmed Khatrata, who's one of the premier and preeminent colored activists from that time. We also reflect it on our experiences daily through journals, journal writing, through essays, readings, dialogues, as well as meetings every single night to reflect on our experiences. To me, the really important part about pedagogy of action and the way it still continues to impact my life is the fact that going to South Africa is really only half of the experience. The other half is when we return home to the United States and how do we use the lessons we learn from there and apply it to our everyday lives? For me, this included lessons in humility and empowerment and a call to community engagement. It is from this experience of South Africa that I was able to shape my own focus around my own passion of urban planning and policy and community building Detroit to a focus on community engagement, connecting to everyday people, and really engaging and empowering others. The biggest lesson I learned from my trip was embodying the principle of that's a uniquely South African principle that simply states that I am who I am because we all are. Or in other words, my humanity is inextricably bound up and that of yours. And as an embodying the spirit of Ubuntu, I believe I'm also able to embody the humanitarian spirit of Raul Wallenberg. And again, this has been a very transformative, amazing experience that will always impact my life. I am very thankful to the Wallenberg committee.