Jackie Skinner wakes up at 7 a.m. to a crowing rooster outside her window in the small village of Lugazi, Uganda.

She was looking forward to a cold shower this morning, but once again a "hand sanitizer shower" will have to do. The little house she shares with 16 other people has no water.

After breakfast, she and her housemates plan the various projects they will take on that day. Depending on the day, these may include teaching business courses, teacher training seminars, construction projects and teaching communication skills to disabled children.

Skinner, a ninth grade world geography teacher and varsity soccer coach at Timpview High School, is spending her summer in Uganda as the country director for HELP International.

"This is my dream job," Skinner said.

Provo-based HELP International currently has volunteers in Guatemala, El Salvador and Uganda. HELP, which stands for "help eliminate poverty," was started in 1999 when a group of students went to Honduras to help the victims of Hurricane Mitch. Since that first summer, the organization has sent volunteers to Venezuela, Peru, Brazil and Bolivia, in addition to the counties they are now serving.

"We started out to help Honduras," said Warner Woodworth, professor of organizational behavior and co-founder of HELP International. "We thought that's what we were up to, but we found out that the more important thing we were doing was giving our kids a life-changing experience."

As the organization has grown and more people have been influenced, HELP has seen its alumni go on to start their own causes, Woodworth said.

These students are not the kind of people who "see the suffering and flip the channel," he said. Rather they choose to go out and do something about the suffering they see.

Rachel Perkins was one such volunteer. Perkins worked with HELP as a volunteer in 2005. At the time, she was studying recreation management at BYU. She said she was so changed by the experience she was moved to do more.

"[Before volunteering] I had been stuck in a rut," Perkins said. "Being able to step outside myself gave me new definition and meaning in my life."

Since her volunteer experience, Perkins has worked with several other local non-profit organizations including Habitat for Humanity and Centro Hispano in Provo. Now, she works as a staff assistant in the humanitarian aid department of LDS Philanthropies.

Perkins' experience is the type of experience Mike Riding, executive director of HELP, wants volunteers to have.

"My vision of HELP International is first for our current volunteers to have life-changing experiences," Riding said. "And they will have a life-changing experience if they're involved in sustainable development."

Volunteers with HELP can choose to be in country for six, nine or 12 weeks or any combination in between. Over the course of the summer, more than 91 volunteers will join the cause. Because of the short stay of volunteers in country, HELP strives to find projects that the community can continue after they leave.

"The way we look at sustainable development is when we've mobilized a community," Riding said. "Community mobilization is synonymous with sustainable development."

In Uganda, Skinner and her team have partnered with the Lugazi Town Council to ensure their program's sustainability.

According to Skinner, there is no better way to spend the summer. She doesn't mind that they have to hire a guard to spend the night watching over their little house. She can handle being the town spectacle as one in a house full of white people or being surrounded by children shouting "Mzungu" (white person). She can even overlook the fact that half the time her house doesn't have running water or electricity.

"We love it here and all feel that we couldn't have spent our summer in a more incredible, rewarding way," Skinner said.



Copyright Brigham Young University 12 Jun 2008