VCU graduates turn their sights to underprivileged families

Three VCU graduates have set their sights beyond Richmond and onto their passion to help underprivileged families in Africa. Tanja Zlatkovic, Ricky Moore and Josh Epperson will travel to Tanzania in April to build a home for a family in need. They said this would be a life-changing experience.

Zlatkovic, 24, graduated in December, and will be returning to Tanzania after living there for three months in 2004.

“I was studying,” Zlatkovic said. “My plans were to get a Ph.D. in political science at VCU or to go to law school, but as I did internship work, I became very disillusioned … I decided to take a trip.”

More information about Light of Africa can be found at www.lightinafrica.com

Zlatkovic said she had planned a four-week trip, but instead, she stayed in the African country for three months that changed the course of her life.

“I can certainly tell everyone that my travels have shaped everything about me,” Zlatkovic said.

Zlatkovic, Moore and Epperson travel together not only as VCU alumni but as friends. Moore, 22, is a construction worker who has been anticipating this trip to Africa for months. After returning home, Moore put medical school on the horizon. Epperson, 23, lives in Richmond and also will enter medical school this summer.

The three graduates will be working with Light in Africa, an organization that plans to build one home during the month-long trip.

“Our goal(s) are primarily to finish building a house for a family in that community . to give the family access to cleaner water supply, access to markets and . access to schools,” Zlatkovic said.

Gallery 5 hosted a benefit, “Building in Africa,” on Feb. 9, to raise money for Light in Africa. Gallery staff said about 150 people attended, and they raised over $1,000, enabling Zlatkovic, Moore and Epperson to have sufficient funds for their construction project in Tanzania.

Following the Gallery 5 performance, Richmond photographer Jake Lyell held a silent auction for 20 photographs he took during his trip to Tanzania. Lyell said auctions are an excellent way to “get the public in a definite mindset and raise their awareness of other countries.”

Lyell recommended that college students find a volunteer program and investigate the needs of disadvantaged countries.

“I am really encouraged that these students are giving their lives away to serve others in more impoverished areas,” said Tim Emerson, a 2003 VCU graduate. “It’s very common for students to have a more ‘me-centered’ view of the world, and these VCU students are doing a good thing for their school.”