Students Bound for Kenya to Do Humanitarian Work

OGDEN, Utah – Two Weber State University students will spend most of December in Kenya as humanitarian volunteers.

Gina Barker, a junior, and Cameron Morgan, a senior, will leave on Dec. 3 to volunteer at the Vumilia Internally Displaced Persons Camp in Kenya. Vumilia is a community-based organization dedicated to helping victims of poverty and violence.

While in Kenya, the duo will spend three weeks teaching English and agricultural science from local textbooks, delivering hygiene kits from Utah elementary students to refugees, setting up a soccer program, and continuing work on the Vumilia Mill Project, which will eventually provide food and jobs for the camp’s residents.

Morgan made his first trip to Kenya in May and was shocked by the living conditions of the refugees. “Individuals were surviving off of bare rations, and the women of the camp were often resorting to prostitution to feed their families,” he said. “Whole families were drinking from jerrycans that were previously used to store battery acid and other harmful liquids. Large families were cramped into dusty, small tents littered with chicken feces.”

Barker and Morgan are both members of WSU’s STAND chapter, an organization that strives to empower individuals and communities with the tools to prevent and stop genocide. They plan to return to Utah on Dec. 24. 

For more information or to donate, contact Morgan via e-mail at weberstatestand@gmail.com.

Visit weber.edu/wsutoday for more news about Weber State University.