Students dedicate efforts to participate in humanitarian projects

Working for health care groups and independent businesses established in developing countries, a number of UCLA student groups will lend their time this summer to volunteer abroad.

Groups from the university will visit several different continents over the course of the summer.

A group of 25 students from One Heart Source, a group that aims to provide support and education to marginalized children in Tanzania, will spend two months in the East African country this summer.

To prepare for the work they will do in Tanzania, the student volunteers have attended regular pre-field training meetings, where they learned “everything from HIV/AIDS education to how to speak Swahili,” said Brian Hengesbaugh, one of the group’s summer program managers.

“I have never met a group of people so motivated by the infallible simplicity of love,” Hengesbaugh said.

Maya Gil-Cantu, another of the group’s program managers, said that the trip would focus on the education and empowerment of children in a community where HIV/AIDS is prevalent.

Student volunteers will work hands-on with children at an orphanage as well as provide HIV/AIDS prevention information to local schools, Gil-Cantu said.

“(The volunteers) seem most excited about immersing themselves in another culture as part of the process of recognizing the oneness of humanity that reaches across this planet,” Hengesbaugh said.

Another group traveling abroad this summer is UCLA’s chapter of the organization Nourish International, which aims to fight poverty and support sustainable development projects abroad. The group, which is in its first year on campus, is sending six students on a two-week volunteer project in Guatemala.

There, they will work to help women of several communities become more economically active members of the community, said Manasa Yeturu, organizer of Nourish at UCLA.

“We are trying to empower these women and include them in the workforce in whatever capacity they are able,” Yeturu said.

The 20 Guatemalan women involved in the project will be producing handmade products such as soaps and shampoos, which student volunteers will help them to market in the most effective way possible.

This year, Nourish International raised all of the money that will be used to develop a marketing campaign for these women, Yeturu said.

The group held several fundraisers, such as on-campus lunches and a benefit concert, to support their efforts.

Yeturu broke her leg shortly before the scheduled start of the trip and said she was disappointed that she could no longer attend. She was nonetheless excited for the opportunity the trip afforded to her fellow group members.

“It’s really important to actually volunteer if you are interested in development and eradicating poverty,” she said. “It’s one thing to study poverty, but it’s another thing to go there and understand the reality of the situation, the humanness of it.”

Also traveling to Central America is Project Nicaragua, which was founded five years ago by three UCLA medical students and has been sending students to Nicaragua as volunteers ever since. The group will host another of its volunteer trips in June.

Project Nicaragua’s focus is reducing the high incidence of the neural birth defect spina bifida in the community of Managua, Nicaragua, said Ravi Menghani, the group’s executive director and co-founder.

Student volunteers for the group spend seven to 10 days working with hospital personnel, interviewing patients and shadowing neurosurgery to try to understand the reason for the community’s high rate of spina bifida, Menghani said.

The students also work to educate women in the community about the importance of taking folic acid, which can significantly reduce the occurrence of spina bifida, he added.

“(The volunteers) really see how bad conditions are, that these people don’t have adequate pain medication or supplies,” Menghani said. “Everyone comes back fired up, and almost everyone who goes wants to go again.”

Other student groups will spend the summer preparing for volunteer projects taking place in the fall.

Over the summer, students from Habitat for Humanity will attend orientation sessions preparing them for projects in El Salvador and Peru this December, said Katrina Laygo, the group’s global village chairperson.

The group will also use the summer months to finalize logistics of the trip such as purchasing airfare, as well as starting the fundraising process.

“We do not want cost to discourage students from applying and participating. … We work to keep the costs low by preparing as early as possible,” Laygo said.

December’s trips will allow the 30 traveling students from the group to spend 10 days participating in the hands-on construction of affordable housing for families in need.

“These trips are humbling and enlightening. In addition to making a difference in people’s lives, they allow us to see how privileged we are to live, work and be educated in the United States,” Laygo said.

Part of the reason that trips like the ones these groups are organizing are so important is that volunteers get to share the knowledge they gather upon returning home, Yeturu said.

“You get on the ground experience and can educate others about what is going on in the world,” she said.

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