Hakuna Matata: My real life Lion King adventure through a different kind of study abroad

            If you’re anything like me, the thought of a study abroad has crossed your mind at least once. Sometimes, though, they’re not always feasible. Maybe you don’t want to spend an entire semester in a foreign country. Maybe it’s a money thing. Or, maybe your major just won’t give you the wiggle room you need to spend time somewhere else. Whatever the reason might be, fear not! There are many other ways to see the world without taking an entire semester to do so.

My name is Kaylyn Hannon and I’m a senior in biomedical engineering. Before I even came to college, I toyed with the idea of studying abroad. I want to see the world, and I’ve always thought it would be so cool to spend a semester somewhere that I’ve only ever dreamed of seeing. Unfortunately, a study abroad was out of the question for me for a couple of reasons. One, when I came to college, I was waaaaaaay to scared to spend that much time somewhere that wasn’t relatively close to home. Two, by the time I got the courage to go anywhere, I was locked into the cycle that is the biomedical engineering curriculum. The department only offers classes once a year, so I couldn’t really get off track. That’s when I decided to seriously consider HESE and Mashavu.

My own WEPO mentor was the one who told me about Mashavu. She loved traveling (she also went to France when she was in school and is now working for GKN in England) and was so excited when she started the class. I thought it was really interesting, and I kept it in the back of my mind until the time came to sign up for the class. This was an opportunity that seemed perfect for me—it was a combination of both helping others and seeing the world.

Let me give you some background on HESE/Mashavu. HESE stands for Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship and is run by Khanjan Mehta. It’s a combination of engineering specifically geared toward developing countries and building business models to go with the products. HESE is broken up into different parts. There’s Mashvu, the Greenhouse Initiative, Zima Pizza, and a team of med students who work through Hershey Medical. Mashavu is made up primarily of junior and senior bioengineers, but there are a few people in different majors. Any engineering major (or non-engineering major actually) can join HESE—depending on what you’re studying, you go with the group that fits your skill set. As a junior bioengineer, I was part of Mashavu. Mashavu is Swahili for “chubby cheeks,” which is a sign of good health in the Kenyan culture. In Kenya, there are certain members of the community who volunteer their time, receive an informal training, and advise members of the community on health issues. Mashavu is a telemedicine system that takes these Community Health Workers and turns them into paid Mashavu Health Workers. We as Penn State students work on helping healthcare workers there by designing low cost devices or new techniques to make screening for diseases easier. This semester, I worked on a test strip to screen for urinary tract infections that can be printed using a standard inkjet printer. The concept is so cool and allows us to make test strips for $0.02. Most Kenyans only live on a few dollars a day, so it’s important to keep these devices as cheap as possible. We spent the regular semester doing a lot of technical work. Chemical research and validation, working on a business model, and compiling data are just a few of the many things we did in the spring. Once the semester was over, we had the opportunity to do field research. This research was a half credit class and lasted two and a half weeks. This trip was actually my first time leaving the country and it was definitely an experience, I can tell you that. Mashavu is based out of Nyeri County, which is about three hours outside of Nairobi. It was a beautiful area, very lush and green. The people there were all so wonderful and appreciative, and working with them was an absolute joy. I loved every second of it.

 

So what did we do on the ground? Well, a lot of time was taken up by CHW trainings. Since we all spent the semester working on devices that deal with certain diseases, we learned a lot about said diseases ourselves. Plus, these people are only educated at a very basic level. We traveled to six different dispensaries all over the county (sometimes we were as far as three hours away) and taught the CHWs about UTIs, diabetes, and skin infections. We also interviewed them about their work in the community, how they currently deal with the problems, and got their opinion on our test strip. My group went around the community as well and talked to potential patients and hospitals/clinics. The point of fieldwork in this context is to gather information we wouldn’t otherwise have access to, like the opinion of our customer. We can’t just pick up the phone and talk to 30 rural Kenyans. It’s not feasible. This trip gave us insight as to whether our idea was feasible for our chosen market or not.

             It wasn’t all work and no play! On the way to Nyeri from Nairobi (we had to fly into Nairobi), we stopped at an elephant orphanage and saw the CUTEST baby elephants. We also stopped at a giraffe sanctuary and I got to kiss a giraffe. That was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. They had food pellets there and if you put them between your lips, the giraffes would lick them right out of your mouth. (Fun fact: did you know giraffe saliva is used as an anti-septic? Well, now you know!) We also went on a two-day safari in Samburu National Reserve. It was about four hours north of where we were staying, as well as in a different hemisphere. Aka I got to stand on the equator. The safari was AMAZING. We saw lion cubs, elephants, wart hogs, and all kinds of antelope looking creatures. We had a campfire and slept in tents that night, which was definitely an experience. Mashavu is partnered with a group called the Children and Youth Empowerment Center (CYEC) and they take kids off the streets to give them a better chance at life. They allow us to use their facilities and they also provide us with translators. When we weren’t working, we would go to the CYEC and play soccer, usually Kenya vs. USA. We would also play with the nursery school kids when they were on a break. They loved touching the “mzungus” (white people) and playing with us.

It wasn’t your traditional study abroad, but it was still the experience of a lifetime. The trip was roughly $3,000, and that includes airfare, vaccinations and malaria pills, things I needed to pack, the money I owed to Penn State to go, the tuition I had to pay (since it is a class), and food. Kenya is cheap. I only spent $270 USD there. That gave me roughly 24,000 Kenyan Shillings. ANYWAY, the point is that it’s not expensive (relatively speaking) and I got to go to freaking Africa. Mashavu is a great way to travel, get hands on experience, and impact the lives of real people. Who wouldn’t want that?!

Kaylyn Hannon is a senior in Biomedical Engineering, and she is the Lead Rover for WEPO '14!