Students, faculty volunteer in Kenya

News Release - October 7, 2005
contact:
Karen L. Gill
karen.gill@cnu.edu
(757) 594-8428

(NEWPORT NEWS, VA) — Several Christopher Newport University students and faculty spent five weeks this past summer in southwestern Kenya helping the traditionally nomadic Maasai tribe make the transition into a stationary lifestyle.

Senior Jonelle Hanson, alumnus Greg Poljacik, and professors Lea Pellett and Linda Waldron joined about 10 other volunteers from the United States. These volunteers with the Maasai American Organization worked in education and community health programs in the Siana Group Ranch, a political unit similar to an American Indian reservation in the United States, Pellett said.

“Most of our volunteers say it’s a life-changing opportunity,” said Pellett, professor emerita of sociology and anthropology. “The volunteers are immersed in a social system that contrasts sharply with their own. They move far out of their cultural comfort zone and become much more competent world citizens.”

Participants helped the Maasai American Organization with ongoing projects and did independent research. Hanson, a communication studies major, studied cross-cultural communication by observing how non-profit organizations
interact with the Maasai people. She received funding for her trip through the Undergraduate Summer Research Program and through the Communication Studies department.

Poljacik, a theater major, worked with a non-profit theater group that presents plays on HIV/AIDS prevention in Kenyan schools.

Waldron received the Community Action Grant from the American Sociological Association and a CNU grant to assess the work that the Maasai American Organization has been doing with girls in school. And Waldron and Pellett began a project to assess the benefits and challenges of educating Maasai girls, which is a contentious issue among the Maasai, Waldron said.

Pellett and three other women founded the Maasai American Organization in 2000. It’s a small, nonprofit organization that assists with community-based education, health and economic self-sufficiency projects. Professional women in the United States and Kenya partner with marginalized Maasai women to help them improve their lives. The organization provides scholarships to educate Maasai girls.

“Until fairly recently, families would only send boy children to boarding schools,” said Pellett. “With these scholarships, we hope to balance educational opportunities.”

Although the trip to Kenya was a first for Hanson and Poljacik, CNU faculty and students participate in the Maasai American Organization field activities in Kenya twice a year -- in the summer and during winter break. Students who are planning to spend this year’s winter break in Kenya are beginning to do independent research now to prepare for the trip in December.

Waldron hopes to encourage more students to travel abroad.

“Having the opportunity to research and learn about other cultures is really what CNU hopes to achieve with the new liberal learning curriculum,” she said. “I think both students and faculty gain a lot from the experience, and in the end, it really helps us grow both intellectually and professionally.”

Christopher Newport University is a four-year public university in Newport News, Virginia. CNU enrolls 4,800 students in programs through its College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the School of Business and offers great teaching, small classes and an emphasis on leadership, civic engagement and honor. Visit us at www.cnu.edu.

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