By Mike Russo
D'Aleo set off on a journey to Zambia, Africa to help the people at the Meheba refugee settlement. The people of the settlement have terrible stories to tell, having no electricity, no money and barely enough food to survive. While the settlement is intended for people to live temporarily, it's a harsh reality that most of the people will end up staying for a long time.
Peter D'Aleo is among a group of 12 students who traveling this summer as part of the FORGE program(Facilitating Opportunities for Refugee Growth & Empowerment.)The program was founded in 2003 by Stanford University student Kjerstin Erickson for the purpose of using university students from western countries as "a mechanism to mobilize and harness the potential of youth as catalysts of social change," according to a statement on their Web site.
D'Aleo became interested in the FORGE program after a friend of his became involved last summer. The selection process was fairly grueling, with D'Aleo submitting an application and answering questions on his greatest accomplishment, loss, personal interests, and ideas for programs he wanted to work on with FORGE. Following that, D'Aleo was interviewed by people from the FORGE program. The purpose of the interview was to observe his enthusiasm and leadership capablilities.
D'Aleo's mission in Zambia was to help make the camp a better place to live by creating businesses and educating the people about business management and finance. An economics and business administration major at Boston University, he has spent countless hours teaching the refugees about loans, interest rates, repayment and business strategies. D'Aleo trained three loan officers and two workshop instructors to regulate the businesses after he returned to America. "They really learned the process," said D'Aleo.
D'Aleo set up a financial plan where an individual could get up to a $150,000 (US Dollars) loan and groups could receive up to $800,000. The refugees would then enter a five-week workshop period where they would be taught business administration and personal finance. This method of providing loans to poor families is calling micro-finance. One of D'Aleo's main goals was to make sure that the refugees understood how to manage their micro-loans, a necessary piece of information often overlooked by other organizations providing micro-finance, according to D'Aleo. His aim is to boost the confidence of the struggling refugees. He made a speech to a crowd of over 500 people in front of the youth council about the importance of youths in the future. "The refugees were talking about it days later," said D'Aleo's mother Loretta.
"Imagine what we can do to change the lives of these refugees." D'Aleo said in an e-mail home to Loretta last July. "My work with the micro-finance stuff does get tough at times. I usually wake up at about 6 a.m. every morning and speak with people begging me for loans. Their stories are ridiculously terrible and unimaginable. I can't describe the terrible things I hear every day, it's just far too graphic to say. It's so difficult to turn people away because I've already selected refugees to attend the workshops. There are many problems here in Meheba, the number one probably being HIV/AIDS. We estimate that about 30 to 40% of people are infected. People here are just so happy to be alive and survive another day. Others are suffering from malnutrition and other things. There's just so much that we can do around here. Many times I am discouraged by the problems here but I'm just taking it day by day.
"I never saw anyone so eager to help others," said Sydney Levin, D'Aleo's ex-roommate from Boston. D'Aleo explained that it was difficult at first to learn the African language, and that body language was very useful. "These people were the nicest, most genuine people I've ever met," said D'Aleo. "Their culture is based on giving."
"A little goes a long way," said D'Aleo. One dollar in American money amounts to 3300 Kwatcha in African currency. Successful Africans live off that amount of money each day. "This is money being invested in people's lives," he said.
Sleeping in an old compound on a grass mattress, D'Aleo says he looks at things a lot differently now, almost feeling guilty wearing nice clothes and living a good life in America. "You realize how good your own life is when you're there" he said.
Mike Schnitzel contributed to this story. Comments about this story? MMalloy@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 202.
