07/29/2026
Greetings from Kenya. CAS is here meeting with our partners on the ground, and it has been a full couple of days.
Yesterday we visited Africa International University - AIU, where their campus sweatshirts sum up the mission well: catalyzing Africa's potential for global impact. For more than 40 years, AIU has trained professionals across many fields, equipping Christian leaders who go on to serve as catalysts for societal transformation around the world. Demand for that work keeps growing, and to meet it AIU is investing in new programs, people, facilities, and infrastructure so it can grow sustainably and serve at a greater scale.
We also spent time with The Green Belt Movement founded in 1977 by Professor Wangari Maathai to help rural Kenyan women who were watching their streams dry up, their food supply shrink, and their walks for firewood grow longer. Decades of grassroots organizing later, it remains a leader in restoring Kenya's forests and has grown to include work on democracy, community empowerment, and conflict resolution.
There is a Pitt connection worth knowing here too: Maathai earned her master's in biology right here at the University of Pittsburgh in 1966, funded by the Africa America Institute, and it was in Pittsburgh that she first saw environmental restoration in action, watching local environmentalists push to clean up the city's air pollution.
The Green Belt Movement is actively looking for Pitt interns, so if that interests you, reach out and we can connect you.
