Do I think we're poised on the threshold of a new era for Africa? I couldn't say definitively one way or another but I can say I see a growing yearning for what Africa represents. I've been working on the continent - first as a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal and then as founder of Development in Gardening - since 2005.

There's something about Africa that grabs you. It's rich with resources and the people are strong and deeply connected to the earth. They're not distracted in the same way that we, in the West, can be. They spend time talking. Family means something special. They're not overwhelmed by television and computers.

The donors we work with connect with the idea that change needs to happen at the grassroots level first. They feel a direct connection to our mission and resonate with our sustainability focus. We're not teaching those we work with something new or telling them to do something in a Western way. We're reconnecting them with the earth and with a sense that they're fully capable of making change in their own lives.

We see people, especially women, experience a profound shift in their lives. Women who are HIV-positive are often ostracized by their families. They don't have a place in society. They're not seen as contributors. Then, they learn how to garden. They become providers for the family. Their daughters start to see them differently. It shifts the story. Their self-awareness changes and they start teaching their neighbors. Women are so powerful but often they don't realize it.

We saw the same shift through one of our community gardens in Uganda. A man who was HIV+ took charge of bringing people with HIV together in the hospital and building community. The group he started has grown to 135 members. They planted a garden and later a fruit-drying business that's generating income. People who were once ostracized are now recognized by their local government.

So yes, stories like these give me hope. And our donors encourage me that a new concept of philanthropy is emerging. It's not about just writing a check. People want to feel connected. It's that yearning for human connection - and a deeper connection to the earth - that gives me the greatest hope that we're poised on the threshold of something really positive in Africa and in the world's relationship to Africa.

Sarah Koch, a 2008 YouthActionNet® Global Fellow, is co-founder of Development in Gardening (DIG). DIG empowers HIV-affected and other at-risk individuals in developing nations to meet their basic nutritional needs by teaching them to create self-sustaining community gardens.

View a slideshow of DIG's work at the W.I.S.E.R. Girl's School in Kenya, supported by a Starbucks^TM Shared Planet^TM Youth Action Grant.