(3BLMedia/theCSRfeed) July 29, 2010 - Growing up in Swaziland, where one in four adults has HIV, Sara Hooker was aware from a young age how some communities face extraordinary challenges. As she become active as a volunteer, she realized that she was not only solving problems – she was growing as a person, too.

The disease is a serious threat not only to the country's economic growth, but to its social stability too.  And so with the specter of collapse in the background of daily life, Sara grew up in a society where opportunities to get involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS were everywhere.

During high school, Sara volunteered to teach English to children orphaned by HIV and AIDS. It was her first act of direct service to others. It not only gave her the chance to use her own education and experience as a platform to help others, she was quickly overturning her own ignorance about HIV infection.

"For the first time, I started to seriously think about volunteering and using my time to give back," she says.

Click here to read the rest of Sara's story. | Read more stories of engagement & social change.

About VolunteerMatch

VolunteerMatch is a national nonprofit dedicated to strengthening communities by helping great people and great causes to connect. Our award-winning online service, www.volunteermatch.org, makes it easy to find a way to make a difference by location, expertise, or availability. VolunteerMatch provides many of the nation's most recognized businesses, campuses and organizations with Web-based solutions to facilitate and track volunteer engagement at local and national levels. As the #1 ranking for "volunteer" on Google and Yahoo!, the VolunteerMatch network regularly welcomes more than 190,000 visitors each week and has become the preferred volunteer recruiting service for tens of thousands of participating nonprofits across the country.

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