Ms. Smart retuned from Kenya on Aug. 29 after a four-week stay. She was one of 10 students volunteering with MUN Hope, in conjunction with Youth Canada International (YCI), on the MUN Hope overseas health outreach project focused on HIV/AIDS outreach and gender inequality.
“It was absolutely phenomenal,” Ms. Smart said. “Words can not describe how it was. It was absolutely the best experience of my life. There is no other way to describe it.”
Ms. Smart after arriving, the group was orientated on the project before starting the planning of the weeks ahead.
“We met with Kwatcha, Africa, a (volunteer) group in Africa who are honestly the upmost inspirational group of youth,” said Ms. Smart, who will be 22 next month. “They are younger than I am, and their main goal is to improve life in their community. A lot of them this is all they know, this is keeping them off the streets. They dedicate their life to improving lives of everyone in the community. I have never experienced such a gracious feeling in my life to know these people and to actually see what they do.”
After the week of planning, the volunteers did a week of seminars in three rural communities, with no water or electricity.
“In these seminars we discussed things such as an introduction to HIV, the history of HIV, drugs in relation to HIV, the biology of HIV, positive living - that’s how you live once you are HIV positive - and a whole list of different topics.”
"It was absolutely the best experience of my life. There is no other way to describe it.” - Cheyanne Smart
Ms. Smart said she was located in the community of Maunguja, the furthest community away from where her homestay family in Mombasa.
“Maunguja is the most beautiful place I have ever visited,” Ms. Smart said. “No electricity, I am pretty sure, just added to the whole experience.”
On days when it was pouring rain, the group could not travel on the muddy roads over a huge hill to Maunguja, so for two of the five seminar days, she had to go to Mwakirunge.
Once the seminars were completed, they had activities in the communities for school-aged children, such as games and a quiz bowl.
“Over there you got to school when your parents can afford it,” Ms. Smart said. “The target grades would probably be 7 to 9 but some of them looked in their 20s. To them, it was normal.”
The volunteers then had a health day where people from the three communities could get tested for sexual transmitted diseases and HIV, get vitamins and different prevention mechanisms.
“We also had a VCT day, the VCT is the process of how you get tested for HIV,” Ms. Smart said. “So we had four or five counsellors that they were able to go speak to.
They expected that we had around 300 people, and I think 87 participants of that day got tested and I don’t think there was anybody who was tested positive, which was great.”
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