Below are excerpts from McKenna Whipple’s winning essay for the Independent Travel portion of the 2016 Building A Better World Scholarship. 2016 BBW Winners.
McKenna’s journey will take she and her Aunt to the “Rift Children’s Village” in Tanzania in the summer of 2107. Please go here to watch the Sixty Minutes segment on the Village. Please go here to find the website for the Village.
Individual Travel is a Powerful Thing – “Individual travel is such a powerful thing that causes a person to grow, but I think that this experience would provide even more than that for me. I would be technically alone (unless another person from the area chose to volunteer with me) but would be with a group of people that I would stay with, connect with, grow with, and get close to. It gives me an opportunity to reach out and affect people, but also be affected at the same time. It gives me a chance to safely explore Africa and some of its culture. I feel very confident in this program and that it would be life changing for me. This is the next place that I want to go, and the next page that I want to read.”
My duties in the Village – “ Volunteers stay in the village for 3-8 weeks at a time and help out as “moms” to the 94 children that live there. I would be assigned to a household of 8-10 children with another volunteer and a Tanzanian “Momma” who stays there permanently to help. I would be responsible to help wake the kids up, feed them breakfast, walk them to school, help teach class, play outside, and the many other tasks that a parent or teacher would do throughout the day. ..How amazing it would be to not only be opening myself up to this brand new culture, but also in turn helping other people learn as well..”
I have plans to become a Teacher – “As of right now, I have plans to become a Teacher. I have grown up with my mother, aunt, and uncle all being educators and have greatly admired them for it. I was born with a passion for teaching that only flourished whenever I’ve had the chance to help student teach or tutor, and the thought of teaching in Africa is an opportunity to not pass up. To have that experience under my belt .. I think that it will even provide me with further insight on the types of things I could do with teaching.”
What if? – “What if I eventually joined the Tanzanian Children’s Fund on staff someday?”
