Ursula Kirk – Welcome

Ursula Kirk is a 28 year old Peace Corps Volunteer serving in Samokov, Bulgaria as a Community and Organizational Development worker. Ursula graduated from Florida A&M University with a BS in Economics and a minor in Business Administration. Ursula’s basketball career started in high school, where she was the Power Forward for the South Brunswick Vikings Girls basketball team. Throughout this period she gained both local and statewide recognition for being the team’s leading scorer and rebounder for three of her four years as a South Brunswick Viking and following, went on to play intramural basketball for her university.

With her mother, Diana Tyson, Ursula co-founded an non-profit organization called F3B, which hosts and delivers a two week long basketball clinic throughout the continent of Africa.  This organization uses basketball as a median to facilitate cross cultural awareness and communications between young American and African girls. This clinic teaches the fundamentals of basketball, strategies and techniques to improve upon existing basketball skills, as well as a professional development portion which teaches and emphasizes the importance of conflict-resolution, leadership, team building, and communication. HIV/AIDS awareness has also been incorporated into the program to address this growing concern in many African communities. F3B has been running the summer basketball clinic for 14 years and countries that have hosted this basketball program thus far include the Ivory Coast, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, South Africa, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, Niger, Morocco, Ghana, Namibia, Benin with Mozambique scheduled for this year, 2010. Partnering with her regional contacts here in Samokov-Rilski Sports Club, F3B hopes to expand their program to Eastern Europe, starting with Bulgaria tentatively scheduled for the summer of 2011.

After her completion of Peace Corps, Ursula plans to proceed with getting a Master’s in Public Policy and start a career in economic development. Ursula’s hobbies include reading, listening to music, watching movies and just enjoying the company of good friends.