Game-Changing Retreat in South Africa

The recent Echoing Green Fellowship regional retreat in South Africa was game-changing. We went in with the intention of building community, showcasing innovation and developing infrastructure to support social entrepreneurs in Africa. What actually happened was so much more.

The Fellows came away renewed and reenergized in their missions, and the staff came home with the understanding of true potential, not only within our Fellows, but in the generations of Fellows to come from the continent.

One of the highlights was spending time at the Echoing Green-funded African Leadership Academy, where ALA students swarmed us and the Fellows, brimming with genuine earnestness to become social change leaders in their home countries. With inspiration flying every which way, that afternoon exemplified what Echoing Green is all about, and the photo below (of us earlier that day riding in an old mine-shaft elevator 33 stories up in the air, perilously attached to the side of an old water tower) says it all—we’re in it together.


Following the week in Johannesburg, some of us continued on to Nairobi, Bungoma, Kigali, Kampala and Monrovia, to check out the work of our Fellows on the ground.


Echoing Green staffer Nate Madsen with Echoing Green Fellow Joel Jackson, plus the Mobius 2


The re:char fabrication workshop being shown to a group of area farmers interested in the power of biochar.


Echoing Green Fellow Andrew Youn asks a field officer to explain their management and accounting of farmers.


Echoing Green Fellow David Auerbach with the Sanergy (office) toilet.


Echoing Green Fellow Jessica Posner and senior vice president Lara Galinsky in front of Margaret’s Safe Place, the Shining Hope for Communities boarding facility.

Echoing Green Fellow Julie Carney shows us the variety of healthy foods in their garden.

View the full photo album.