Local Nurse Prepares For Africa Trip

From the time Hayley Hawkinson touches down in the African city of Lusaka, Zambia, Sept. 3 to the time she leaves on Sept. 13, she might not have the luxury of running water. 

She might not have electricity, either. Or Internet access. Or a phone, a bed or any of the other comforts of her Plano home.

What the 23-year-old Hawkinson — and the eight to 10 registered nurses traveling with her — will have is the ability to provide medical care, a service nearly unattainable for the people living just hours from Zambia’s capital city.

“Zambia itself is kind of stuck in the 1970s, technology-wise,” Hawkinson said. “There’s not really much unrest … it’s just poverty. Everyone there just has nothing. The only way they get things like medical treatment are trips like this.”

Hawkinson’s trip was organized by the Nurses for Africa group founded by Illinois-based nurse Theresa Poole in 2009, and sponsored by Hawkinson’s employer, Rosewood Care Center, which sends nurses from Illinois and Missouri to Africa every year. Nurses for Africa will send four groups to Zambia this year, with two leaving in August and two in September.

Hawkinson’s team is the third to go, leaving Sept. 1 and flying overnight to London before taking another overnight flight to Lusaka. There, they’ll add a member of the African relief group Hands at Work to help navigate the culture, then board a bus bound for villages a few hours away — where diseases that could be stopped by simple over-the-counter medication run unchecked.

Poole, who will lead a team to Zambia Aug. 18, said she tries to explain to volunteers just what the poverty is like before they arrive. She’s rarely successful.

“They’re never really 100 percent prepared,” said Poole. “There are the same pockets of extreme poverty everywhere (in Africa), but in Zambia it is relatively widespread and fairly intense.

“A lot of their illnesses are very simple things. Things that we could run to Walgreens and pick up something over the counter for. But they have absolutely no access to medication or healthcare. Their resources are almost nothing.”

That’s where Nurses for Africa comes in.

Groups like Hawkinson’s will provide everything from first aid training to school supplies, toiletry items and clothing during their 10-day stay. A documentary on nursesforafrica.net — the organization’s official website — shows teams treating children and adults in villages as well as walking five to six miles to perform wellness checks at remote homes.

Those efforts don’t go unnoticed by the Zambian people, described by Poole as “joyful.”

“They’re so appreciative of anything that you do for them or give them,” said Poole, a veteran of several similar trips to South Africa. “I remember the first time we went and we gave the children coloring books and a little box of crayons. When we were getting ready to leave, they were surprised. They said, ‘You mean we get to keep them?’

“Imagine a child who’s school-aged who’s never had their own box of crayons,” Poole said.

Hawkinson is trying to help make stories like that the exception rather than the rule.

Hawkinson graduated from Yorkville High School in 2005, attending Waubonsee Community College for two years before finishing her nursing program at Joliet Junior College, where she graduated in December. She works at the Rosewood Care Center in Joliet, helping people rehabilitate from procedures like hip and knee replacements.

This is unfamiliar territory for Hawkinson, who said her motivation to get into nursing was job security. She seemed surprised that Nurses for Africa accepted her into the program, given her overall lack of humanitarian experience.

“I’ve hardly even volunteered before, so I didn’t think I was a good candidate to go,” Hawkinson said. “But this is a great way to start, to see if I like it or not. To see if it’s something that I want to do forever.”

The past few weeks have featured a whirlwind of vaccinations — Hawkinson said she prefers to be on the giving end of the needle — and paperwork.

But with most of that done, Hawkinson is looking for more community involvement. She has organized a fundraiser at the Yorkville Pizza Hut on July 26, and with her trip paid for she mostly will be looking for school supplies, matchbox cars and other small toys, gently worn children’s clothing and toiletry items.

She’s allowed three checked bags on her flight to Zambia, and said she hopes to fill at least two of them with donations.

“These people have nothing,” Hawkinson said. “Maybe it’ll help me appreciate what I have."

You can also donate by mailing checks to: Ten Talents Foundation, 11701 Borman Drive, Suite 315, St. Louis, Missouri 63146.