Jacob Floyd, 23, remembers when his biggest concern was his starting for Hargrave Military Academy's varsity basketball team. Now, less than 10 years later, he is more focused on providing work opportunities to Africa's youth so they can feed themselves and their families.

Why such a turnaround?

"During my freshman year of college I changed my major from psychology to political science and became interested in international issues," Floyd said. "I wanted to travel to developing countries to get a view of life for an average person."

Floyd worked in Lusaka, Zambia, for five months creating business plans for projects owned and operated by Zambia's youth, such as a small-scale irrigation scheme, together with a company called ZATAC, which stands for Zambia Agribusiness Technical Assistance Center.

But when Floyd was a River Hill High School student, neither Floyd nor his friends would have imagined he'd be doing such work. In fact, he said, freshman year he was voted "biggest jerk" among his friends. However, during his junior year at Hargrave he began to stray from his adolescent ways.

"In high school, Jacob had completely different interests and was a bit of a rebel," said Alexandra Gargon, 22. "Now he has matured so much, and I think his trip to Africa played a big part in that."

Changing communities

After high school, Floyd went to Albright College in Reading, Pa., to play basketball. Freshman year, he wanted to be a sports psychologist, "until taking Psychology 101," he said.

His junior year he decided to stop taking classes and move home to Highland with his four siblings -- Jordan, Patrick and Bryan Orwig, and Matthew -- and parents, Donald and Carolyn, in order to plan a trip to Africa. He left in late October to work with ZATAC.

Outside of his work with ZATAC, Floyd engaged in community work where he tried a ground-up approach. He would go into townships, or town slums, as he calls them, to talk to the community with a handful of other people. He would find out what changes the community wanted made, and would develop a platform for them to speak with their local government leaders, such as parliament.

The main changes the communities in Misisi, a township outside of Lusaka, wanted were security, sanitation, education and health development services. Through Floyd's work, he was able to get funding for a police post in the area, a health clinic constructed and a local school's capacity increased. In addition, new desks were built, and new chalkboards and textbooks bought for the school.

"It's little things we take for granted, like clean water and electricity, that is so important to these people," Floyd said.

An irrigation scheme Floyd worked on with ZATAC was first of its kind, as it would bring clean water and electricity into the village of Serenje. The project included finding 30 local youths through an application process to own and operate a plot of land. From the land, the youths can create an income.

Passion to make difference

Floyd had no formal training or degree for the type of work he was doing -- just a lot of passion.

"I am not a trained political scientist or a program director, but I was able to get people on board and excited about the opportunities out there in just give months," Floyd said.

"His work serves not only as a testament to his character, but to his will and determination as well," said friend Bradley Callow, 22. "To realize his dreams at such a young age is both notable and admired."

Floyd is interested in going back to school and plans to take a class at Howard Community College this summer to get back on track. In the near future, he plans on applying to American University to graduate with a degree in political science.

"I'd like to continue doing work to help communities build the capacity to address the issues they are facing," Floyd said. "When living off one or two dollars a day, they don't have enough time to think about bigger issues, like sanitation or electricity. They need outside help to address the issues, and then everything else is easier to deal with."

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