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ENLARGEKristen Petitt hugs a friendly face.
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Special to the Daily Breckenridge resident and Narrow Road co-founder DJ Schappert pose with children from the Daughters of Charity home in Kiwanga, located just outside of the capital city of Kampala.
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Special to the Daily Breckenridge resident and Narrow Road co-founder Dave Olszewski helps fit a child with shoes at the Sabina Home in town of Sanje in the Rakai District. Rakai is in the southwestern portion of Uganda, very close to the border with Tanzania.
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SUMMIT COUNTY - This fall several Summit County residents found themselves in Uganda - 10 time zones and a cultural world away from the snow-capped mountains of home.
Breckenridge Resort Chamber public relations director Kristen Petitt said that once she was in the lush African country of Uganda, which she compared to the scenery in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, she realized how far away from Breckenridge she was.
"There's nothing I could imagine that would be more different from Breckenridge. The only sensation I felt that seemed the same was the wind," she said
Among the people who went, there was a diversity of goals that they wanted to accomplish. D.J. Schappert and Dave Olszewski, founders of the Narrow Road nonprofit organization, took a team of six individuals to do volunteer work at two orphanages. Petitt went to help her friend who is the director of nursing at a hospital in the capital city of Kampala. Terri Oderman, who is working toward becoming certified as a professional organizer, went to do research on starting a fair trade business dealing in organizational and storage products.
Schappert, Olszewski, Petitt and Oderman became inspired to go to Uganda by meeting a woman from Uganda through their church, The Breckenridge Christian Ministries. The woman, Rose Nanyonga, grew up in Uganda and was adopted by Irish missionaries. She came to the United States to study nursing, and she spent a summer in Breckenridge. Currently, she is the nursing director at the International Hospital in Kampala, Uganda's capital city.
Because of their connection with Nanyonga, Schappert and Olszewski decided that Uganda would be an ideal place for their nonprofit organization, The Narrow Road, to do work. Longtime travel buddies, the two came up with the idea to form a humanitarian nonprofit organization while riding on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The organization, which also does work in Honduras and Mexico, has made several trips to Uganda. Schappert and Olszewski have focused their efforts on two orphanages, known in Uganda as "homes."
During this trip they and their team purchased shoes for 51 children, 50 textbooks, and two fire extinguishers. They also built a chicken coop and bought 200 chickens. Schappert explained that for most of their meals the children eat only beans and poshi - a kind of flour. The chickens will produce enough eggs for each child to eat eggs every day, and the home will able to sell the extra eggs for a profit.
"It's income-generating," Schappert said.
Schappert also said that on average in the homes four to five children die of malaria every year. Working with Nanyonga and her team of nurses, The Narrow Road bought a malaria test kit and funded a program that will enable the nurses to visit the home every two weeks for the next six months.
"We funded it enough to treat any kid that gets sick for the next six months," he said.
Petitt's goal in going was to see how she could use her skills in the public relations field to help the situation in Uganda.
"My mission was to find out if there are opportunities for someone like me, who is not a doctor or an engineer, to help out over there," she said
For the three weeks she was there she volunteered as a personal assistant to Nanyonga and helped her with data entry and brainstorming sessions. Now that she is back in Breckenridge, she is working on a public relations plan for Nanyonga's hospital, which has a Hope Ward that does pro bono work for children with AIDS and children who have been affected by The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda.
The LRA is known to kidnap children and force them into servitude as either soldiers or sex slaves, Petitt explained. The insurgent group marks the children by cutting their ear, lip, or nose off. The hospital has been doing pro bono surgery to help some of the children who have been able to escape.
Petitt's mission now is to spread the news of what the Hope Ward is doing and the crises they face to the mainstream media in the United States.
Oderman went to Uganda to combine her ambition to start an entrepreneurial business in storage and organizational products with the ideals of global change and poverty relief. While in Uganda she found a fair trade organization that she would like to work through. The organization employs women that would make Oderman's products from local materials, and it ensures that they receive a livable wage.
"It helps them break the cycle of poverty they would otherwise be in," Oderman said.
The organization has made it possible for many of its employees to buy land, and build houses and latrines, Oderman said. She also said she is very optimistic about working with them.
"I'm really excited. The products are practical, useful and beautiful," she said.
Schappert, Oderman and Petitt all agreed that while going to a different place and experiencing a new culture was an amazing experience, the highlight of their trip was interacting with the children at the two homes, one in Kiwanga and one in Rakai that they visited and did work at.
"By calling them 'homes,' they try to create a family atmosphere. Any older adult is called 'auntie' or 'uncle' among the children," Schappert said.
The children are orphaned mostly because of the AIDS crisis, and there are at least 10 children in the homes they visited that are HIV positive and have nowhere else to go, Schappert explained.
Schappert said the biggest thing missing from these children's lives is attention from, and connection with, people.
"It makes a much bigger impact to spend two hours playing tag with these kids than it does to buy them new shoes," he said.
Petitt described the children, who range from kindergartner to junior high-aged, as being polite, talented and beautiful. She said the children get so excited to have visitors that she felt like a rock star when she was at the homes. They enjoy singing, dancing, and making gifts and thank-you cards for their guests.
While Oderman was there she brought a book on how to make friendship bracelets and she, the other members of the team, and the children all spent a night making friendship bracelets.
"The children really steal your heart. Their smiles are so big, and they are so loving," she said.
Two in particular stole Petitt's heart, and she now financially supports them.
One of them was one of nine children whose mother died. He wants to be a lawyer, and he works in the fields every summer so that he can pay the fees to go to school.
Petitt's hope is that, with her support, he will be able to use his summers to be a kid.
"When they interact with Westerners they have a hope that we will invest in them and they will become these things," she said.
One thing that has surprised Schappert the most throughout Narrow Road's trips to Uganda is that the people he takes with him from the United States often feel that they are receiving more of a benefit than the children they are helping.
"The people that go experience such a change internally and it brings a greater awareness. You bring memories of that back and you become a spokesperson for it when you return home," he said.
Breckenridge Resort Chamber public relations director Kristen Petitt said that once she was in the lush African country of Uganda, which she compared to the scenery in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, she realized how far away from Breckenridge she was.
"There's nothing I could imagine that would be more different from Breckenridge. The only sensation I felt that seemed the same was the wind," she said
Among the people who went, there was a diversity of goals that they wanted to accomplish. D.J. Schappert and Dave Olszewski, founders of the Narrow Road nonprofit organization, took a team of six individuals to do volunteer work at two orphanages. Petitt went to help her friend who is the director of nursing at a hospital in the capital city of Kampala. Terri Oderman, who is working toward becoming certified as a professional organizer, went to do research on starting a fair trade business dealing in organizational and storage products.
Schappert, Olszewski, Petitt and Oderman became inspired to go to Uganda by meeting a woman from Uganda through their church, The Breckenridge Christian Ministries. The woman, Rose Nanyonga, grew up in Uganda and was adopted by Irish missionaries. She came to the United States to study nursing, and she spent a summer in Breckenridge. Currently, she is the nursing director at the International Hospital in Kampala, Uganda's capital city.
Because of their connection with Nanyonga, Schappert and Olszewski decided that Uganda would be an ideal place for their nonprofit organization, The Narrow Road, to do work. Longtime travel buddies, the two came up with the idea to form a humanitarian nonprofit organization while riding on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The organization, which also does work in Honduras and Mexico, has made several trips to Uganda. Schappert and Olszewski have focused their efforts on two orphanages, known in Uganda as "homes."
During this trip they and their team purchased shoes for 51 children, 50 textbooks, and two fire extinguishers. They also built a chicken coop and bought 200 chickens. Schappert explained that for most of their meals the children eat only beans and poshi - a kind of flour. The chickens will produce enough eggs for each child to eat eggs every day, and the home will able to sell the extra eggs for a profit.
"It's income-generating," Schappert said.
Schappert also said that on average in the homes four to five children die of malaria every year. Working with Nanyonga and her team of nurses, The Narrow Road bought a malaria test kit and funded a program that will enable the nurses to visit the home every two weeks for the next six months.
"We funded it enough to treat any kid that gets sick for the next six months," he said.
Petitt's goal in going was to see how she could use her skills in the public relations field to help the situation in Uganda.
"My mission was to find out if there are opportunities for someone like me, who is not a doctor or an engineer, to help out over there," she said
For the three weeks she was there she volunteered as a personal assistant to Nanyonga and helped her with data entry and brainstorming sessions. Now that she is back in Breckenridge, she is working on a public relations plan for Nanyonga's hospital, which has a Hope Ward that does pro bono work for children with AIDS and children who have been affected by The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda.
The LRA is known to kidnap children and force them into servitude as either soldiers or sex slaves, Petitt explained. The insurgent group marks the children by cutting their ear, lip, or nose off. The hospital has been doing pro bono surgery to help some of the children who have been able to escape.
Petitt's mission now is to spread the news of what the Hope Ward is doing and the crises they face to the mainstream media in the United States.
Oderman went to Uganda to combine her ambition to start an entrepreneurial business in storage and organizational products with the ideals of global change and poverty relief. While in Uganda she found a fair trade organization that she would like to work through. The organization employs women that would make Oderman's products from local materials, and it ensures that they receive a livable wage.
"It helps them break the cycle of poverty they would otherwise be in," Oderman said.
The organization has made it possible for many of its employees to buy land, and build houses and latrines, Oderman said. She also said she is very optimistic about working with them.
"I'm really excited. The products are practical, useful and beautiful," she said.
Schappert, Oderman and Petitt all agreed that while going to a different place and experiencing a new culture was an amazing experience, the highlight of their trip was interacting with the children at the two homes, one in Kiwanga and one in Rakai that they visited and did work at.
"By calling them 'homes,' they try to create a family atmosphere. Any older adult is called 'auntie' or 'uncle' among the children," Schappert said.
The children are orphaned mostly because of the AIDS crisis, and there are at least 10 children in the homes they visited that are HIV positive and have nowhere else to go, Schappert explained.
Schappert said the biggest thing missing from these children's lives is attention from, and connection with, people.
"It makes a much bigger impact to spend two hours playing tag with these kids than it does to buy them new shoes," he said.
Petitt described the children, who range from kindergartner to junior high-aged, as being polite, talented and beautiful. She said the children get so excited to have visitors that she felt like a rock star when she was at the homes. They enjoy singing, dancing, and making gifts and thank-you cards for their guests.
While Oderman was there she brought a book on how to make friendship bracelets and she, the other members of the team, and the children all spent a night making friendship bracelets.
"The children really steal your heart. Their smiles are so big, and they are so loving," she said.
Two in particular stole Petitt's heart, and she now financially supports them.
One of them was one of nine children whose mother died. He wants to be a lawyer, and he works in the fields every summer so that he can pay the fees to go to school.
Petitt's hope is that, with her support, he will be able to use his summers to be a kid.
"When they interact with Westerners they have a hope that we will invest in them and they will become these things," she said.
One thing that has surprised Schappert the most throughout Narrow Road's trips to Uganda is that the people he takes with him from the United States often feel that they are receiving more of a benefit than the children they are helping.
"The people that go experience such a change internally and it brings a greater awareness. You bring memories of that back and you become a spokesperson for it when you return home," he said.
Schappert also said that on average in the homes four to five children die of malaria every year. Working with Nanyonga and her team of nurses, The Narrow Road bought a malaria test kit and funded a program that will enable the nurses to visit the home every two weeks for the next six months.
"We funded it enough to treat any kid that gets sick for the next six months," he said.
Petitt's goal in going was to see how she could use her skills in the public relations field to help the situation in Uganda.
"My mission was to find out if there are opportunities for someone like me, who is not a doctor or an engineer, to help out over there," she said
For the three weeks she was there she volunteered as a personal assistant to Nanyonga and helped her with data entry and brainstorming sessions. Now that she is back in Breckenridge, she is working on a public relations plan for Nanyonga's hospital, which has a Hope Ward that does pro bono work for children with AIDS and children who have been affected by The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda.
The LRA is known to kidnap children and force them into servitude as either soldiers or sex slaves, Petitt explained. The insurgent group marks the children by cutting their ear, lip, or nose off. The hospital has been doing pro bono surgery to help some of the children who have been able to escape.
Petitt's mission now is to spread the news of what the Hope Ward is doing and the crises they face to the mainstream media in the United States.
Oderman went to Uganda to combine her ambition to start an entrepreneurial business in storage and organizational products with the ideals of global change and poverty relief. While in Uganda she found a fair trade organization that she would like to work through. The organization employs women that would make Oderman's products from local materials, and it ensures that they receive a livable wage.
"It helps them break the cycle of poverty they would otherwise be in," Oderman said.
"We funded it enough to treat any kid that gets sick for the next six months," he said.
Petitt's goal in going was to see how she could use her skills in the public relations field to help the situation in Uganda.
"My mission was to find out if there are opportunities for someone like me, who is not a doctor or an engineer, to help out over there," she said
For the three weeks she was there she volunteered as a personal assistant to Nanyonga and helped her with data entry and brainstorming sessions. Now that she is back in Breckenridge, she is working on a public relations plan for Nanyonga's hospital, which has a Hope Ward that does pro bono work for children with AIDS and children who have been affected by The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda.
The LRA is known to kidnap children and force them into servitude as either soldiers or sex slaves, Petitt explained. The insurgent group marks the children by cutting their ear, lip, or nose off. The hospital has been doing pro bono surgery to help some of the children who have been able to escape.
Petitt's mission now is to spread the news of what the Hope Ward is doing and the crises they face to the mainstream media in the United States.
Oderman went to Uganda to combine her ambition to start an entrepreneurial business in storage and organizational products with the ideals of global change and poverty relief. While in Uganda she found a fair trade organization that she would like to work through. The organization employs women that would make Oderman's products from local materials, and it ensures that they receive a livable wage.
"It helps them break the cycle of poverty they would otherwise be in," Oderman said.
The organization has made it possible for many of its employees to buy land, and build houses and latrines, Oderman said. She also said she is very optimistic about working with them.
"I'm really excited. The products are practical, useful and beautiful," she said.
Schappert, Oderman and Petitt all agreed that while going to a different place and experiencing a new culture was an amazing experience, the highlight of their trip was interacting with the children at the two homes, one in Kiwanga and one in Rakai that they visited and did work at.
"By calling them 'homes,' they try to create a family atmosphere. Any older adult is called 'auntie' or 'uncle' among the children," Schappert said.
The children are orphaned mostly because of the AIDS crisis, and there are at least 10 children in the homes they visited that are HIV positive and have nowhere else to go, Schappert explained.
Schappert said the biggest thing missing from these children's lives is attention from, and connection with, people.
"It makes a much bigger impact to spend two hours playing tag with these kids than it does to buy them new shoes," he said.
Petitt described the children, who range from kindergartner to junior high-aged, as being polite, talented and beautiful. She said the children get so excited to have visitors that she felt like a rock star when she was at the homes. They enjoy singing, dancing, and making gifts and thank-you cards for their guests.
While Oderman was there she brought a book on how to make friendship bracelets and she, the other members of the team, and the children all spent a night making friendship bracelets.
"I'm really excited. The products are practical, useful and beautiful," she said.
Schappert, Oderman and Petitt all agreed that while going to a different place and experiencing a new culture was an amazing experience, the highlight of their trip was interacting with the children at the two homes, one in Kiwanga and one in Rakai that they visited and did work at.
"By calling them 'homes,' they try to create a family atmosphere. Any older adult is called 'auntie' or 'uncle' among the children," Schappert said.
The children are orphaned mostly because of the AIDS crisis, and there are at least 10 children in the homes they visited that are HIV positive and have nowhere else to go, Schappert explained.
Schappert said the biggest thing missing from these children's lives is attention from, and connection with, people.
"It makes a much bigger impact to spend two hours playing tag with these kids than it does to buy them new shoes," he said.
Petitt described the children, who range from kindergartner to junior high-aged, as being polite, talented and beautiful. She said the children get so excited to have visitors that she felt like a rock star when she was at the homes. They enjoy singing, dancing, and making gifts and thank-you cards for their guests.
While Oderman was there she brought a book on how to make friendship bracelets and she, the other members of the team, and the children all spent a night making friendship bracelets.
"The children really steal your heart. Their smiles are so big, and they are so loving," she said.
Two in particular stole Petitt's heart, and she now financially supports them.
One of them was one of nine children whose mother died. He wants to be a lawyer, and he works in the fields every summer so that he can pay the fees to go to school.
Petitt's hope is that, with her support, he will be able to use his summers to be a kid.
"When they interact with Westerners they have a hope that we will invest in them and they will become these things," she said.
One thing that has surprised Schappert the most throughout Narrow Road's trips to Uganda is that the people he takes with him from the United States often feel that they are receiving more of a benefit than the children they are helping.
"The people that go experience such a change internally and it brings a greater awareness. You bring memories of that back and you become a spokesperson for it when you return home," he said.
Two in particular stole Petitt's heart, and she now financially supports them.
One of them was one of nine children whose mother died. He wants to be a lawyer, and he works in the fields every summer so that he can pay the fees to go to school.
Petitt's hope is that, with her support, he will be able to use his summers to be a kid.
"When they interact with Westerners they have a hope that we will invest in them and they will become these things," she said.
One thing that has surprised Schappert the most throughout Narrow Road's trips to Uganda is that the people he takes with him from the United States often feel that they are receiving more of a benefit than the children they are helping.
"The people that go experience such a change internally and it brings a greater awareness. You bring memories of that back and you become a spokesperson for it when you return home," he said.
Useful websites
Children of Uganda: www.uccf.org
Invisible Children: www.invisiblechildren.org
The Narrow Road: www.narrowroadintl.org
International Hospital Kampala: www.img.co.ug
Uganda factbox
Area: 235,040 sq. miles
Comparable to Oregon in size.
Children of Uganda: www.uccf.org
Invisible Children: www.invisiblechildren.org
The Narrow Road: www.narrowroadintl.org
International Hospital Kampala: www.img.co.ug
Uganda factbox
Area: 235,040 sq. miles
Comparable to Oregon in size.
Climate: Tropical - generally rainy with two dry seasons
Population: approximately 28, 200,000
Approximately 50 percent of the population is between the ages of infancy and 14
Life expectancy at birth: 52.67 years
As of 2001 there were thought to be approximately 530,000 people in Uganda living with HIV or AIDS.
Official language: English
GDP per capita: $1800
Source: CIA World Factbook online
Population: approximately 28, 200,000
Approximately 50 percent of the population is between the ages of infancy and 14
Life expectancy at birth: 52.67 years
As of 2001 there were thought to be approximately 530,000 people in Uganda living with HIV or AIDS.
Official language: English
GDP per capita: $1800
Source: CIA World Factbook online
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