When Kevin Oakley saw the one-sentence blurb in his e-mail inbox, he knew he had to go — but he didn’t know why.
A student-run organization, One Heart Source, was seeking volunteers to work in the heart of Africa for about five weeks.
Oakley, a Huntington Beach native who attends USC, knew his mind was made up the second he saw the request.
“As soon as I read it, for some reason I just knew that was what I was going to do this summer,” he said.
He contacted the organization, sent in his application and attended a few interviews.
“The next thing I knew, I was on my way to Africa,” he said.
Oakley raised funds from family and friends; his parents gave him frequent flier miles to cover his airfare.
Although they were nervous, Oakley said he felt no fear.
“The whole time, I was just ready to go,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to go to Africa. I guess maybe I should have been scared. I don’t know if I was just naive or what.”
Oakley spent the majority of his trip in Mateves, Tanzania, a tiny village near the city of Arusha.
Some of the organization’s founders had worked there previously with another group, and felt that there was still more work to do.
Oakley and about 40 other students lived seven to a room in mud and dung huts.
The volunteers charged their mobile phones, laptops and iPods with solar panels.
After performing tasks like digging holes for chicken coop poles and pouring concrete for the foundation of a planned orphanage, Oakley taught the kids of the village, and got to know the street kids of Arusha.
The relationships he built were bittersweet; when he came home, he frequently thought about his friends in Tanzania, who were lucky to get one square meal a day.
“It was harder to readjust to coming back than to going there,” Oakley said. “I really recognized how easy everything comes here. Flip a switch and you have light, or a hot shower.”
Since coming back, Oakley has switched from a pre-med focus to majoring in international relations.
“I realized that being a doctor, you can only touch one person at a time,” he said. “In international relations or public policy, you have a broader base to build greater change.”
He also serves as One Heart Source’s USC campus coordinator.
Oakley feels he brought two key realizations home with him.
