George Washington University Athletics
GW Student-Athletes on Mission at World Cup
6/15/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
June 15, 2010
WASHINGTON, DC - They'll meet up with their South African pen pals, tour Nelson Mandela's home, go on a safari, visit museums and, yes, they'll be at a World Cup game.
GW rower Jake Miner (`12), soccer's Liz Hillin (B.A. `10, M.A. `12) and Emily Gower (`10) are in Johannesburg with athletes from Georgetown and 10 D.C. area middle school students who took part in the Grassroot Project during the school year.
The Grassroot Project program educates the younger students about HIV/AIDS.
The program included corresponding with students in the Grassroot Soccer program in South Africa. A face-to-face meeting between the two groups took place after a visit to the Sterkfontein Caves where scientists discovered fossils dating back more than four million years to the birth of humanity.
The itinerary includes touring the home of Nelson Mandela in Soweto and the Hector Pieterson Museum. Pieterson was an Apartheid hero.
The group's safari will take place on a game reserve where the animal population includes 85 lions, including rare white lions.
The South African visit includes a stop at the Apartheid Museum, The Constitutional Court and a meeting with Edwin Cameron a South African Rhodes Scholar and current Constitutional Court justice. He was the first senior South African official to state publicly that he was living with HIV/AIDS.
And, of course, there's the World Cup. The group will take in a game before concluding their adventure in South Africa.
