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Alumni Start Non-profits Around the World
By Alicia Giuffrida
Reprinted from The Leader, Summer 2002, Vol. 17 No. 3
World Camp for Kids
Baker Henson began traveling in 1997 when he ventured to Patagonia for a semester with NOLS. “I learned a lot: leadership skills, trip logistical planning—and it got me out of the U.S.” Since then, Henson has spent his summers traveling around the world, learning as much as he can—and doing some teaching, as well.
“The first summer I spent in Africa,” recalls Baker Henson, “I volunteered at a street shelter in South Africa. There were more than 200 HIV-positive kids there, and none of them understood HIV/AIDS at all.” Unable to find an affordable volunteer program addressing this problem, Henson took matters into his own hands. First, he and a few friends traveled around Africa, meeting with village leaders and school principals to talk about health education. Then, after returning to UNC Chapel Hill, Henson and a team of eight other students began fundraising for World Camp for Kids, their new non-profit, volunteer organization.
“Ten of us spent last summer in Malawi–it’s the poorest nation in Africa that hasn’t just had a revolution,” Henson explains. “We visit schools for two days at a time, teaching kids about HIV/AIDS, environmental awareness, health and hygiene, and a little arts and crafts.”
Henson and his team visited 21 schools last summer and plan to cover closer to 28 this year. “A third of the teachers in Malawi are HIV positive,” he says, “and there are huge taboos against talking about sex. But as Americans we’re in a good position—nobody minds if we teach kids about sex and AIDS.”
In fact, villagers seem to welcome World Camp with open arms. “The whole community stops while we’re there—all of the community members, all village leaders come to hear us.” Most of the villages are completely undeveloped and hidden a three- to four-hour journey into the African bush.
Henson and his team are hoping to expand next summer’s program into Honduras, another nation troubled by high rates of HIV/AIDS. “We’d also like to open the program up to volunteers worldwide, and to train people in the local communities as leaders.”
For more information about World Camp, visit www.worldcampforkids.org.
Alicia Giuffrida (SSPM-1 9/25/98) lives in Lander, Wyoming, where she climbs, writes and fosters dreams of starting her own non-profit one day.
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