My Plans

Hello! My name is Hannah Feltis and if you're reading this then you have probably heard about the humanitarian trip that I am taking to Mbale, Uganda. After I tell people that I'm saving up to go on a three month trip to Africa they always have the same questions:

Are you going with a group?

Yes! I am going with a group based out of Provo, UT called HELP International. They focus on making the people they help become more self sufficient through education, health and business. I found out about them through a article in the LDS Church news (you can read it here: http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/61151/Fight-Poverty-Empower-People.html). I had always wanted to do humanitarian work and HELP International made my dreams seem within reach.

What are you going to do there?

With HELP's focus on education, health and business, I imagine we'll be teaching the people we serve a lot about how they can improve upon these aspects of their lives. Projects they've done before range from building a health clinic to teaching the basics of hand washing. HELP likes to give their volunteers the opportunity to come up with some of the projects themselves which I am very excited about!

Why Uganda?

I lived in Utah until I was 4 years old. My parents had both gone to school at BYU and my dad had a friend in college named Vincent Musaalo who grew up in Uganda during Idi Amin's reign. Although when I was little I didn't know how scary the Uganda he grew up in was, I did know that he was nice, he was my dad's friend and he was from Africa. He has recently written a book called 'Through Some Miracle Not Yet Clear to Me'. It's an amazing book about his life growing up in Uganda and eventually, moving to America. The way he describes his homeland made the decision easy for me and I knew that was where I was supposed to go. The summer of 2011, I also got to go to Utah with my family and meet Vincent's mother who was visiting her son in America for the first time. She was an amazing woman who appreciated every little thing and I wanted to meet more people like her who can see the good in everything.

After answering these basic questions people usually say 'Good for you!', or something along those lines. I had a really odd experience a few weeks back when a customer at the REI that I work at, told me that I shouldn't go because 'no one there needs any help'. I told him that I know for a fact that many of them need access to clean drinking water and a good education so they can start building up their community around them. He told me that they didn't need any of that and that they should just figure out their problems on their own. I don't believe that telling people to solve their problems on their own will solve anything. I believe that going and making a difference in people's lives is what will really make this world a better place. I have spent much of my life being an onlooker of humanitarian work and I am so excited that my (hopefully) life changing experience is almost here!

If you would like to donate towards the cost of my three month trip follow this link: https://npo1.networkforgood.org/Donate/Donate.aspx?npoSubscriptionId=1006009&code=Website