Global Partners: African Education Program (AEP)
Written by Julie-Anne Savarit-Cosenza, Co-founder and Executive Director of AEP | Published: March 9, 2026
I grew up in what many would consider a suburban bubble outside of Philadelphia. Never one to conform to the norm, I always had my heart set on leaving the bubble to work and become a part of a community far different from my own. My passion and respect for diverse communities, as well as awareness of the world’s inequalities, particularly for young Africans, stemmed from my early exposure to the African expatriate community through my Zambian soccer coach growing up.
In 2002, during my sophomore year of high school, three friends and I decided to start a service project for students living in communities that were under-resourced and affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. We were focused on having a personal connection to the community we would serve and pinpointed Kafue, Zambia, where my soccer coach’s brother Amos lived.
At the time, we were outraged by the waste in our school and decided the project would be to collect used books, school supplies, computers, and clothes and ship them to Kafue. We founded the African Education Program in 2004, and the container shipped out the spring of 2005, weeks before high school graduation.
With college on the near horizon, my co-founders and I did not have a clear vision for the future of AEP. We were fortunate to receive a grant to fund a trip to Kafue so that we could meet the community that would be receiving the goods we sent. Inspired by our Zambian peers, and responding to their plea for a space that would provide an educational, creative, and safe environment, AEP volunteers (myself included) and members of the Kafue community opened our flagship Learning & Leadership Center, named the Amos Youth Centre, in 2006.
Over the last 20 years, we have honed this unique community-led model. In 2025, over 5,000 children, youth, and women were reached through holistic empowerment programs at the center and through rural outreach and peer-to-peer initiatives in local schools.
Our Reproductive Health Access Initiative has weekly programming, which focuses on improving reproductive, menstrual, and emotional health, preventing pregnancy, building self-esteem, and ending HIV stigma and gender-based violence. Thanks to these comprehensive programs, less than 2% of young women at the center become pregnant before turning 18, compared to 15–20% of young women locally.
AEP is currently building a first-of-its-kind Learning & Leadership Center that includes a dedicated Health & Wellness Hub, where our existing empowerment programs will expand to provide family planning, reproductive health education, and access to essential services for adolescents, women, and families.
Today, each young woman at the center receives a pack of reusable cloth pads and a menstrual cup to ensure she never misses a day of school or a day at the center due to menstruation. In 2022, we received a USAID Youth Excel Research-to-Change grant that allowed us to evaluate our approach distributing menstrual cups to the mothers and guardians of the girls in our program in order to combat stigma and taboos while increasing usage. In 2024, this grant was expanded through the creation of an inclusive and sensitive open source educational storybook, My Period, Our Story, available in print, audiovisual, and braille formats. The storybook addresses critical barriers to menstrual health education and is tailored to the unique needs of Zambian youth, fostering a safer, more supportive environment for all students.
The majority of the team running the Amos Youth Centre are alumni of the program. To have seen them grow over the years from children to young adults and now to leaders in their community is incredible.
Zambia has one of the world’s fastest growing and youngest populations, with 68% of Zambians under the age of 25. At the African Education Program, we believe that Zambia is filled with a generation of youth ready to create change for their families, their communities, and their nation. We are incredibly grateful for Population Connection’s support.
Visit africaneducationprogram.org to learn more about the African Education Program and its many projects and programs!
Related content:
2023 virtual event recording with AEP