During my sophomore year at UW, I declared a certificate in Global Health and began searching for programs to fulfill the field experience requirement. Through the University, I found a brand new trip to Sierra Leone with a focus on water-born disease. I knew nothing about Sierra Leone, but I had an intense desire to learn more about the country, its culture, and the health of its population.
Following final exams, I had four days at home to relax and prepare before we started our journey to the west coast of Africa. We started in Chicago, spent a few hours in Montreal, and then a few more in Belgium. After a stop-over in Dakar, we arrived in Sierra Leone, but we were still a car, a ferry, and a taxi away from the University of Sierra Leone (USL) Campus where we would be staying for our first 11 days.**
Once on campus, we had the pleasure of meeting a number of local students who were chosen specially to participate in our program. Together, over the next three weeks, we would work together to develop an understanding of the current health situation in Freetown, Kabala, and the surrounding areas. We also planned and facilitated the First Annual Sustainability Innovation Camp (SIC) in the Koinadugu District. This was a camp focused on nutrition, sanitation, sexual health, and waste management issues and was attended by over 200 local children.
During this trip, I made life-long connections with students from both UW-Madison and USL while I learned about the social development projects of Project 1808 (an organization founded by the trips leader and now student org advisor Dr. Alhaji Njai).
Since returning to the US, the first cohort of field experience students has continued to work closely with Project 1808. This has included planning the 2014 Sustainability Innovation Camp to be facilitated by a new cohort of students-- a camp that would be attended by over 400 students and community members in Kabala.
** My trip to Sierra Leone was the trip that required the most travel time via different modes of transportation. To get back to the US, I took a motorbike, a bus, a ferry, a taxi, and three planes. At that point, I was lucky enough to be able to drive home, but many of my fellow travelers were still a train or a bus ride away from getting home.
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