“You went to Africa this summer? That is so cool. I have always wanted to go to Africa.” This is something I hear often when I tell people about my recent trip with the MPA program to Ghana. It is usually followed up with, “I would love to go on a safari. Did you see elephants and giraffes? I bet they are so amazing in person.” My reply is, “no, I didn’t go on a safari.” “Oh, so you built a school then, right?” Nope, didn’t do that either. So what did I do in Ghana for three weeks? This summer a few from the program were given the opportunity to travel to Ghana for a life changing, educational experience. We were able to work on projects for a nonprofit, called Empowered Playgrounds, as well as for the Church. The task we were assigned to do for Empowered Playgrounds was to systematically devise a plan to select schools in rural Ghana that would qualify for a merry-go-round. For the church, we evaluated a program that is designed to aid returned missionaries in finding a job.
Brittney Smith describes how her experiences have contributed to her learning, and how she is using the skills she acquired in her summer internship. “I was just thinking this morning about how Ghana helped me. It definitely opened my eyes to a new way of life and gave me exposure to an international, third-world country and how different it is. But something in particular that helped me a lot was going through the process of the RM project. We interviewed a lot of people, brainstormed, summarized themes, and then presented the information with some suggestions. I am currently doing a very similar project internally with my company this summer. I have interviewed hundreds of people in group and individual settings about performance and engagement issues, then I summarized the themes and problems, and now I am making it into a presentation for upper-management with suggestions for improvement. By applying what I learned in Ghana from the process and feedback of our project has helped me do this project more efficiently.”
While no school or health clinic was built in our name, through this experience we lived our motto: Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve.
