2007 – A Year Of Positive Change For RESPECT

by Marc Schaeffer
Founder and President
RESPECT International

The changes in RESPECT International in 2007 have mirrored changes in my own life.

RESPECT International has always had fantastic online volunteers going above and beyond the call of duty but this year marks a significant shift in the development of strong volunteer teams that have taken ownership of swaths of tasks to further build the organization.

Ashok Pillai, Coordinator of RESPECT University and his team of committed volunteers were nominated for and won an Online Volunteer Team of the Year award.

Ashok and his team have taken the tremendous challenge of offering quality correspondence education to high school graduated war-affected students personally and seriously.

They have built RESPECT University into a program of a dozen or so instructors with more than 100 students in just over a year. This is just the beginning. 2007

Winning Team of RESPECT University Volunteers

On 5 December 2007, the United Nations (UN) Volunteers Online Volunteering Service announced RESPECT University's team of volunteers was selected to receive the Online Volunteering Team of the Year Award. They are one of ten volunteer teams from around the world to receive the award this year. The following are comments from some of those volunteers.

• "I feel so happy and proud, when I think that my work – so minimal it is – will contribute to improve living conditions of many refugees in Africa. It's my contribution, it is ours, in this fight against poverty in the world. God bless RESPECT International."
• Adama Adjomayi
  Benin

• "I am very honoured to have been a part of RESPECT International in the fight for refugee schools in Africa. It has been an amazing experience and one we shall continue to fight for. God bless you all and may we all continue to work together to eradicate poverty in the African region!"
• Vasemaca Naiviko Lutu
  Fiji Islands (Pacific Islander)

Winning Team