Partners for Justice: Loyola University and Global Alliance for Africa

Global Alliance for Africa is a not-for-profit organization founded in Chicago in 1995 by an adjunct professor of philosophy at Loyola University, Dr. Thomas Derdak. Partly because of this connection, the original Board of Directors of Global Allliance included several Loyola faculty and alumni representing various schools and departments of the university. In 1999 Global Alliance and Loyola University entered into a formal partnership arrangement that gave Loyola faculty, staff, and students access to the network in Africa that Global Alliance had developed over the preceeding years, as well as the chance to learn about the latter's unique approach to African social issues and, in addition, to take advantage of its considerable experience dealing with travel conditions in Africa and other sorts of logistical issues. In 1999 and again in 2000 Loyola students studying environmental ethics in developing countries visited East Africa under the auspices of Global Alliance, and in 2001 Global Alliance conducted the first of the annual visits by Loyola faculty and staff to rural villages, urban hospitals and universties, and other institutions in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.

Loyola faculty and staff have been a regular presence at the annual fundraising "Galas" held in April by Global Alliance. In 2005 the newly elected senator from Illinois, Barak Obama, gave the keynote address from Washington since the Senate was still in session (click here to see video clip). More recently, the Hon. Stephen Lewis, former Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations and the UN's Special Envoy to HIV/AIDS in Africa gave the address (click to hear the address).

A full description of the mission and on-site operations of Global Alliance can be found at the organization's web site at www.GlobalAllianceAfrica.org . For additional information about its projects in Africa as well as its fund-raising activities in Chicago and elsewhere in the U.S.A., please contact the director of Global Alliance for Africa.