Dr. Sharon Brown became the Vice President of Son Shine Christian Association Scholarship Fund (Fund) in 2008. The Fund was established in 2006 as a Florida non-profit corporation. It is an exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Sharon visited South Africa in 2002. That experience so impacted her that she became involved in yearly short-term mission trips to Benin, Togo, Uganda, Sudan and Ghana.
In January of 2008 Sharon visited Kajo Keji County in what was then southern Sudan. Today this is part of the new country of South Sudan. What she saw there so impacted her that she commissioned an assessment by the Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, Gulu University, to determine what it would take to bring food security to that country. The assessment was completed in July 2009. The assessment revealed that the land was suitable for agricultural production but there was limited manpower to cultivate the land. The improvement of agricultural extension service delivery was singled out as key to improving agricultural production.
The work in Africa became the focus of the Fund after Sharon became the Vice President. The fund partnered with organizations in the United States and Africa to bring humanitarian relief and training to rural communities in Uganda and South Sudan. The name of the organization was changed to Son Shine Global Partners by registration in November of 2012 to better reflect the operation of the organization.
Today Son Shine Global Partners (SGP) is working in Uganda and Ghana through partnerships. SGP provides financial support to Malku Institute of Technology and other local institutions that provide humanitarian relief and training in rural communities.
Known for her straightforward yet compassionate delivery style, Dr. Brown is a successful attorney and entrepreneur in South Florida. She leads with a mindset of creativity, stewardship and collaboration. She believes that SGP should take the education to the community promoting strong family relationships and providing practical, solution-focused education for the training and equipping of solution agents.
To advance the goals of SGP, Dr. Brown developed a Comprehensive Agricultural Training Programme (CATP) that seeks to empower the young people in African rural communities by equipping them with the right agribusiness skills. The program seeks to incubate them in an enabling environment that provides technical assistance and ensures that the young agro-entrepreneurs understand their markets and make the best connections to those markets. This program is in line with the United Nation Sustainable Development Goal 2.3 that targets to double the agricultural productivity and the incomes of small-scale food producers by 2030. CATP seeks to address the challenges of high youth unemployment and food insecurity that are facing many nations in Africa.
Dr. Brown received her Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in computer science from The University of Miami and her Juris Doctor (JD) degree from St Thomas University School of Law. She received a Ford Foundation Fellowship to pursue the Master of Laws (LLM) Degree in International Law at the University Of Miami School Of Law.
