This December, twenty members of Catawba College’s Volunteers Around the World Club (VAWS) will board a flight to Cuzco, Peru to do their part in supporting an important cause. The Catawba College branch of VAWS will be taking a two week medical mission trip this winter break to provide medical support to the people of Cuzco.
“For seven days of the trip, we will be working in a medical clinic to help locals in the area” says Lee Brackman, president of the VAWS club. “There will also be a medical education day for the youth at a nearby school.” Brackman, also sophomore biology major here at Catawba, started the club spring semester of 2017. In high school, Brackman explains that he attended two mission trips to Haiti where he worked in a clinic, performed charity work, and formed lifelong friendships with some of the people in the area. “A trip like that really humbles you and changes your perspective on life” Brackman commented about his Haiti experience. “It’s like you’re supposed to be the one helping them, but really it changes your life more than it does theirs.”
It was these trips to Haiti that inspired Brackman to start looking for a way to lead the students of Catawba on a similar expedition. Although, this time the mission trip would be geared toward those who were interested in pursuing a career in the medical field. Through a friend at another college, Brackman learned about the Volunteers Around the World organization and was immediately interested in starting a branch at Catawba.
The Volunteers Around the World organization was founded by Mark and Rebecca Stanley when they met working for non-governmental organizations in Peru. Since the program’s inception in 2006, branches of the club have been created at over 50 colleges and universities and have established clinics in eight different countries. The program was originally created with the broad intention of volunteering to aid the less fortunate;however, the program has since developed specific themes and courses of action by providing different kinds of trips. The themes for these trips include art outreach, dental outreach, nutritional and water security programs, and medical outreach.
Catawba’s branch of VAWS is taking a medical outreach trip that will involve assisting local doctors, distributing medication, and teaching classes on hygiene, nutrition, and first aid. The majority of the students attending are passionate about the medical field as well as helping others.
“I’m pumped for this trip,” says sophomore member of the club Robert Morrison. “The fact that I can get hands on medical experience while doing something that’s really going to make a positive impact on the area, is really exciting.” Like several other members of the club, this will be Morrison’s first medical based mission trip out of the country, but he says he is up to the challenge.
While in Cuzco the students will be staying in the homes of host families, eating local food, speaking Spanish, and getting a first-hand experience of the culture that Peru has to offer. Brackman, VAWS president, hopes that the success of this trip will encourage more students to come on future trips, and expand the size of the club.
Throughout the fall semester of this year, the VAWS club will be holding several fundraisers to help pay for the expenses of the trip. These fundraisers include percentage nights at local restaurants, organized walks and runs within the community, and working concession stands at both the Catawba Indians’ and Carolina Panthers’ football games. As members of the Catawba College community, let’s get behind this cause and help support the students going to do mission work and represent our Catawba in Peru this winter!
