HASA HARVARD ALUMNI FOR SOCIAL ACTION J U N E 2 0 0 8 V O L U M E 3 , I S S U E 1 HASA FACT SHEET Hundreds of alumni have come together since 2005 to form the Harvard Alumni for Social Action (HASA). See www.hasa-sasa.org for the full list of members. HASA believes in the transformative power of education and thinks Harvard should be a leader in improving education not only in Cambridge, but also in African countries hard-hit by AIDS. HASA has two goals: (1) to support African graduate students and educational institutions; and (2) to encourage alumni to consider new models of giving that will bolster higher education in poorer regions. The recent enrollment of African students at Harvard was less than one percent (148) of total enroll- ment (19,731). The picture was only marginally better for African graduate students, who represent 4 percent of all foreign graduate students at Harvard. At HASA’s urging, Harvard agreed to create the “HASA Scholarship Fund for Graduate Students from Africa.” This is the first time that Harvard has set up a designated scholarship fund for reunion classes that will count towards their class gift. It's simple to designate all or part of your class gift contribution to this fund. When making your donation, just put HASA FUND in the memo line of the check, or in the “additional information” section when making a gift on-line. And if you have already donated, you can retroactively designate your gift to HASA by sending an email to Tara Wolfson in the Harvard Development Office at [email protected]. HASA also set up another fund to benefit the fledgling Dar es Salaam University College of Education (DUCE), a constituent college of the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, ranked by Webometrics as the best university in sub-Saharan Africa. Carnegie Corporation of New York is providing technical oversight to this fund. Admin support is provided by Human Rights Education Associates, founded by Felisa Tibbitts ’81. Harvard alumni and all other donors wishing to support the HASA African University fund should make US$ checks out to Human Rights Education Associates and put “HASA FUND” in the memo line. A donation to HREA in the U.S. is tax-deductible, but will not count as participation in our class gift. Please send checks to: HREA, 97 Lowell Road, Concord, MA, 01742. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia and Harvard alumna “HASA SASA” (Kiswahili for “especially now”) Please visit www.hasa-sasa.org