Servant leadership isn't just an aspiration at North Carolina‘s Charlotte Latin School - it's the cornerstone of the establishment’s mission and values. Director of Student Leadership Development, David-Aaron Roth, is on a return-visit to South Africa with a second group of students who are being challenged to understand leadership approaches here in relation to their own First World concept of leadership.
While in Durban, the group visited The Domino Foundation’s Babies’ Home and David-Aaron commented: “We were with the NPO last year and are back so our students can experience the paradigm shift from what they know from home to one in which local communities help to build each other up.” He went on to say that, all too often and with the best of intentions, people from outside a country can come with a saviourist approach that they know what is best to cure that society’s problems. “That is not the type of student Charotte Latin is trying to develop.”
After the 2025 visit, the students’ take-home was a celebration of the goodness they had experienced in South Africa rather than a focus on the obvious and pervasive disparities found here. This year’s students agreed that the community engagement they had seen in South Africa is a very specific element for growth and empowerment: “One of the best ways to know you have succeeded is when someone you have been helping says that they have been empowered to the point that they are now independent and don’t need you anymore. Then you know you have achieved your goal.”
As a celebration of their belief in a new generation of South African leaders with vision being raised up, the North Carolinians made a generous donation to Domino’s ongoing work.
