Be the change you want to see

When dual tragic events hit Carrington and the greater Foster County area last fall, Kenzie Edland decided she wanted to do her best with the time she's been given.

Kenzie, the daughter of Greg and Teresa Edland of Carrington, went on the adventure of a lifetime for a two-week mission in Uganda, Africa, to offer her medical assistance, energetic spirit and love for her fellow human beings.

"I decided to go to this medical outreach in Uganda to see how other cultures and how different people's lives are from my own," she said.

Edland began her travels to the east-central African country on Sunday, June 11, for the start of a 27-hour flight to the capital city of Kampala.

She arrived for her mission, sponsored by Making a Difference in Uganda (MDU), a non-profit organization working around Kampala with the stated goal "...to bring volunteers to support local organizations with transforming the lives of vulnerable Ugandan children and offering services to improve the health and wellbeing of impoverished Ugandans."

"The Making a Difference in Uganda program really stood out to me as something I would really learn from, and love to be a part of," Edland said.

The UND student, majoring in forensic science and also enrolled in the pre-physician's assistant (PA) program, will be graduating with her bachelor's degree in 2025.

Before her trip, Edland explained that there were strict health precautions to follow, in coordination with the organization.

"You have to have an appointment with a travel doctor, and receive many vaccines," she noted. "They also sprayed all my clothes with permethrin [an insecticide] to repel mosquitos, and I had to take daily pills to prevent malaria."

She also noted that safety is one of the main challenges of doing work with MDU, as the lack of security in the developing nation can be sometimes dangerous for outsiders.

"Our volunteer group stuck out like a sore thumb, and everyone's attention was brought to us at all times," said Edland.

The volunteers stayed in a walled compound in Kampala, near a very busy intersection of motorcycle, pedestrian and truck traffic often reaching a standstill at times on the unmarked streets.

Nearly the entire time, her family feared for her safety in a foreign land.

"I was so nervous and worried for her, but I was reminded again that our next days aren't guaranteed, no matter our age or where we are in the world," her mom Teresa wrote in a Facebook post from Tuesday, June 27.

Edland's mission work

Kenzie helped at remote medical clinics around Kampala and Entebbe, 22 miles southwest of the capital, to help diagnose diseases such as HIV, malaria, respiratory infections and other maladies, and to administer pregnancy tests.

"We would go to different slums around the area every Tuesday and Thursday," she explained. "MDU visits them every one or two months, where anybody who comes can get a test."

Edland said that people who came to the clinics ranged from the elderly to babies just a few days old.

There is a sign-in area, where temperatures, pulse and oxygen levels are taken, along with labs, a dispensary station for medication, and two doctors, each with one volunteer, who diagnose the patients and prescribe medicines.

Wednesday mornings allowed MDU volunteers to conduct a women's empowerment program, where they would talk to women with no means of support in their daily lives.

"There, they learn tailoring and hairdressing to give themselves a living," Edland said.

Fridays featured trips to local secondary schools, where they would teach students how to treat and prevent urinary tract infections (UTIs), as well as personal hygiene.

"They still stayed happy"

She also spent time with Kampala's "street boys," homeless youths struggling to survive their life situation, in the Kisenyi district. Kisenyi is one of the poorest neighborhoods of Kampala, and crime and drug use is an ever-present problem.

"The organization does a program to help them on Monday mornings and Wednesday afternoons," said Edland. "We walk around the streets to gather the boys to the compound, and there are usually 20-50 boys that show up."

Some of the amenities MDU offers for the street boys include games, food, wound treatment, HIV and malaria testing, education, and counseling.

It was the time with the street boys, says Edland, that made the most lasting impact on her.

"The boys there could be any age from seven to 18," she said, and added that kids even younger than that, though not necessarily homeless, were there because their families couldn't provide enough food for them.

"They were always so happy and cheerful during the program, and so thankful. Even though they had nothing, they still stayed happy, showed love to us, and really accepted the love and help we try to give them," said Edland.

When it came time to leave, she said the boys would provide a form of traffic control around the MDU bus, enabling the vehicle to leave the area safely.

Her time in Uganda made a permanent impression on Edland, and she hopes to do similar humanitarian work in the future.

"This trip made me feel like I had truly made a difference, and can continue to make a difference around the world," she said. "The people there, especially the kids, would light up when they saw us, because they knew we were there to help.

"I want to continue to make a difference in people's lives, and help them feel better," she concluded.

Teresa agreed, posting, "These experiences and memories will help shape the woman she will become. I hope the friendships she made with others from around the globe will last a lifetime."

About Uganda

Uganda is a country slightly smaller in area than the state of Wyoming (just over 93,000 square miles), but with almost 48 million people. Kampala alone has a population of 1.68 million, and 6.7 million within its metropolitan area.

The nation has managed to persevere in the face of impoverishment, endemic disease and ethnic and political turmoil throughout its recent history.

Named for the Buganda kingdom which historically ruled the south of the country, Uganda began as a British protectorate (colonial territory under English Crown administration) from 1894 to 1962, and withstood the brutal dictatorship of Idi Amin from 1971-79 which caused the deaths of anywhere from 80,000 to up to an estimated one half million people.

A period of nearly 14 years of civil war followed from 1980 to 1994, precipitated by rebel groups fighting for power in the country upon the power vacuum created by Amin's forced exile. As a by-product of this devastation, the sitting Ugandan government, along with the rebels themselves, perpetrated human rights violations on an almost incomprehensible scale.

Against that backdrop, several insurgent campaigns remain to this day, including the notorious Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) led by warlord Joseph Kony, made infamous by the viral "Kony 2012" documentary. Those and other groups complicate efforts to achieve a lasting peace within the whole of the country.

At the present time, Uganda is one of the poorest countries in the world, ranking 188th out of 211 countries and territories in nominal gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, at just $1,105 in U.S. dollars according to the International Monetary Fund.