Graduate student Megan Kelly hands out oranges to children in Sabie, South Africa.
Courtesy of Megan Kelly
After finishing her undergraduate degree, Megan Kelly wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted to do with her life, but she did know one thing for certain ““ she wanted to help people.
“I wasn’t really ready to start working, I wasn’t really ready to go into graduate school. I wasn’t really sure where I wanted to focus my energy, but I did know that I wanted to help people, that’s sort of part of my personality. I wanted to serve others, I wanted to live in that environment and test myself,” Kelly said.
Kelly, now a graduate student in the Masters Entry Clinical Nurse Program, decided to join the Peace Corps to do something positive and to experience something unlike anything else she could potentially do after college.
From 2007 to 2009, Kelly predominantly served in Sabie, a town in the northeastern part of South Africa. During her time in the country, Kelly focused on public health and education, where she lived in a home for children infected with HIV. She also worked with local schools, organizing a project to promote female empowerment that remains in place today. But ultimately, her goal was to help out in whatever way she could.
“In the Peace Corps, we’re constantly told in the first eight months of our service that you’re just supposed to absorb and you’re not supposed to come in there and think that you’re going to change the world and think, “˜We have all the answers,’ that sort of thing. That’s not supposed to happen. You’re just supposed to wait it out and see where maybe you can find a way in.”
After working for the Peace Corps, Kelly said she realized exactly what she wanted to do with her life ““ interact directly with patients and participate in medical mission trips such as Doctors Without Borders.
“I would absolutely do it again,” Kelly said. “In fact, I plan on doing Peace Corps maybe at the end of my career. … I think that sort of work is something I plan on doing forever.”