It sounds like the best way for Sara Jackson to learn is by doing.
The 20-year-old St. Albert resident has a great desire to teach young people. It all stems from her love of people and lifelong passion for education.
“I value it above everything else, for sure,” she said.
Jackson has just finished her second year in the University of Alberta’s global development studies program and has spent the last few months planning the trip of a lifetime. She was recently accepted as a volunteer with Restless Development based in London, England. The 25-year-old youth-led international aid organization has a mission of putting the world’s youth in charge of their countries’ own progress. The first step toward that direction is education.
Jackson’s assignment will take her to Nepal where she and two others will spend about five months in a small rural village teaching sexual education to youth and adults, as well as English and sustainable farming practices to members of the community. She will also be doing community outreach to engage youth through activities and working toward empowering girls and women both economically and socially.
Jackson said her life goals focus on helping the impoverished and downtrodden of the world, giving them all of the tools and ideas to have better lives. This might even include becoming a lawyer.
“I want to help provide justice for people in developing countries that do not have access to that. I don’t pity poor countries, I just think that people need to put themselves on the same level as other humans. I don’t think that people do that enough.
“Developing countries lack certain things, but they also have a lot of potential … if I can take part in that, and help to be a part of the process of finding that potential, then that would be meeting my goals.”
After this brief hiatus from post-secondary life, Jackson will continue her bachelor of arts studies at the University of Calgary. For Jackson, education never stops. She wants people to know that Nepal has recently been through a period of great social upheaval and unrest, made all the worse by its closed off geographic location. Even though she’s going there to teach, she’s really going there to learn.
“I think that [this trip is] something that I’ll forever learn about and that I’ll never be bored with.”
To get there she’s also immersed in a fundraising effort to amass $7,000 to pay for the adventure. More than 80 per cent of the donations will go towards developing and running outreach and educational programs in rural communities in about a dozen countries including Sierra Leone, India and Zambia. She is covering the bulk of it herself but still needs help to raise $2,000 by the end of September.
“Most of the money I’m going to be making through my jobs. The whole point of fundraising for me is to educate people while I’m doing it. I’m not one for just asking for money; I’d like to get some information out there about the people I’ll be working with, the country and the history and all that.”
To learn more about the organization please visit www.restlessdevelopment.org or to help her out you can visit www.justgiving.com/sarajackson-nepal2011.
