Future Plans Start for ASPIRE, Africa Partnership Station

ROTA, Spain (NNS) -- American Students Partnering in Response and Education (ASPIRE) working with Africa Partnership Station (APS) on its maiden deployment has helped bring text books, microscopes and other donations to countries in West and Central Africa.

Now, with the conclusion of the first deployment, leaders are planning how to best utilize future APS deployments to continue the effort.

"This is good stuff and there is all kinds of room for expansion. It's all about being creative and being flexible and wanting to make a difference," said Capt. John Nowell, the APS commander, about ASPIRE using Navy vessels to get donations from Europe to any location in Africa.

"There will be some times where we have an amphibious ship like USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43) and have lots of space to transport donations, then there'll be other times where we won't have as much space but there is always room for some boxes of the right stuff," Nowell said.

ASPIRE started in Rota, Spain a little more than a year ago. It is run by student volunteers who make all of the contacts with the Office of Defense Coordination (ODC), at the U.S. Embassy of the specific African country of interest, so they can locate a school, hospital or other certified humanitarian site to form a partnership to identify what supplies are needed and get them on site.

"The American kids are learning about the infrastructure, politics, and economics. They're learning about all these things about what is going on. Then the kids use their contacts to get this stuff. Our biggest problem has been shipping. The Navy has been a blessing there," said Robert Klain, Project ASPIRE manager.

The ASPIRE program has members from Rota High School and Wiesbaden High School, some of whom have been able to visit Morocco and meet first hand the people they are helping.

"The kids who traveled to Morocco came back with a completely different attitude," Klain said. "Also the Moroccans came away with a different attitude of American kids, and to this day, they are emailing each other. They're going to visit on their own. It's starting relationships like this that really make a difference in the world."

Leaders hope in the future they may be able to schedule student visits to other donation sites.

"ASPIRE benefits the folks down range and it benefits the students and the people in the community throughout Europe to have a chance to do something that matters," said Nowell. "It's also teaching the kids another culture and how they can do something to make a difference in society. It's beautiful and I look forward to working with them more in the future."

For more news from Africa Partnership Station, visit www.navy.mil/local/aps/.