Where did you start this adventure and why did you target this particular area?
I’ve been traveling to Africa for about two years. I started there with an invitation from Cori Stern, [the founder of the Next Right Thing], to be a part of an HIV workshop in a Liberian refugee camp in Ghana. And from that, everything else evolved. I got really involved with Cori, setting up some projects in Africa. When you’re there and spending time, you meet children who have medical conditions that just aren’t being taken care of in their own country, whether the care isn’t available or because the parents don’t have the funds to take care of it. Cori had been helping with medical issues like that for a number of years. Then she and I began to formalize the process and formed the Next Right Thing to really be able to help more children. We bring children into the U.S and we get doctors and hospitals to donate their services. The costs that need to be covered are in some cases the visas and passports for the children, and medical tests performed in their country so our doctors can approve them and transport them to the U.S. We work to get donors to provide those costs. (Those costs are met (or covered) through fundraising).
What language do you communicate in once you’re there?
A lot of it is an unspoken language. Many of the countries we work in are English-speaking countries. We have also been bringing children over from the Ivory Coast, or Cote d’Ivoire, which is a French-speaking country. I ended up spending six weeks there in January and February of last year. Originally, Cori and I were only going for two days, but they turned into six weeks. I wish I could say I’d picked up more French than I did, but luckily, we can find people to translate. Even when we’re transporting kids who don’t speak English, we find ways to communicate.
When you’re transporting the kids and their parents back to the U.S?
