PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Africa will soon be stamped on the pages of nine Philadelphia boys passports who are students in the KB + Mo Bamba Education Abroad Program. The group prepares for a trip to Ivory Coast.
This coming August, the nine Philly students, from different parts of the city, will spend nine days together with nine Ivorian peers, exploring the global supply chain.
Mayor Cherelle Parker shared insights about her own transformative journey to West Africa earlier in her life.
“If you are given access to this opportunity, it is a betrayal not to share it with other people who cannot see what you see,” she said.
Students will witness firsthand the journey of products, such as rubber, sourced from African trees and culminating in American Michelin tires.
Bryce Boynton, 17, has been participating in the KB Foundation since he was 14. He is enthusiastic about seeing and experiencing the supply chain from start to finish.
‘I didn’t know the collection process [of rubber] and how it was cleaned and turned into usable material,” Boynton said.
“More important [this is] Giving him leadership skills and seeing something outside of himself and what he’s usually used to seeing,” Boynton’s mother said.
The KB Foundation is a mentorship program that partners with 76ers center Mo Bamba, whose family is from Ivory Coast.
They have also partnered with West Africa’s largest agro-industrial company, SIFCA, for the cultural and educational exchange experience.
‘It really opens up [the mentees’] horizon for how everything works,” said Justin Fishman, vice president of programming for the KB Foundation.”[They ask] How can I be part of this and what are the opportunities?”
“There is also an important human aspect. They meet the communities close to the plantations and see the conditions that are sometimes not so easy,” says Henriette Gomis-Billon, communications director of the SIFCA Foundation.
Aziza Shuler
