Local teacher, students share what they learned after spending 3 weeks doing service in Uganda
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IDAHO FALLS — After a recent trip to Uganda to help with various service projects, a group of local students have a renewed appreciation for life in America.
Jason Richardson, the headteacher at Deseret Study Abroad Academy in Idaho Falls, was in the east African country with 12 of his students from Jan. 20 through Feb. 10. Each student earned money to pay for the 21-day trip, which cost more than $2,000 apiece.
Before leaving, they held fundraisers to buy school supplies for 200 students in Uganda. During their stay, they spent time in a brickyard stomping in the mud. They made about 870 bricks and donated them for villages to use on various construction projects. They later bought some bricks to build a public bathroom with showers and toilets.
They planted seeds by hand for villagers’ crops, helped lay insulating mud for a grass hut and did some cleanup at local schools.
Richardson tells EastIdahoNews.com that living and working among the people in one of the world’s poorest and least developed countries was an eye-opening experience. Since returning home, they’ve spoken frequently about how blessed they are to live in the U.S.
“It doesn’t take a whole lot of time over there for the problems of America to just disappear,” Richardson says.
Towards the end of the trip, Richardson says they switched hotels, and one of the students, 16-year-old Adeline McEachran, expressed gratitude for a shower with hot running water and a garbage can.
“It was the first time in three weeks that they’d seen a trash can,” he says. “Everybody (in Uganda) just throws their trash out in the street. Everything is covered in trash.”
Adeline moved to Rexburg last fall from Ontario, Canada so she could attend Richardson’s school. She heard about it through her cousin, who is married to one of Richardson’s daughters.
The ability to travel the world as part of her education is enlightening to her.
“We would hear about how America is special … but you don’t really realize that until you go to other countries and see what’s so different about it,” Adeline says.
She was delighted to see how grateful people were for her and her classmates’ service.
People’s lifestyle in Uganda is totally different, she says. Simple things that many take for granted in the U.S. are not an option in Uganda because every day is a struggle to survive.
Adeline’s favorite part of the trip was her interactions with people, especially children.
“Being able to hang out with the children, whether it was playing games or handing out candy or stickers — those were my most memorable moments,” says Adeline.
She realizes how much she took for granted before this trip and now has a whole new perspective. Adeline appreciates the opportunity to travel as a student at the Deseret Study Abroad Academy.
“I’ve gone to Hawaii and Disney World with my family. A vacation experience is great, but a traveling experience (to learn what it’s like in other countries) is really important. I want everyone to be able to experience something like that.”
Making these opportunities available to more students was the motivation behind a piece of legislation Richardson’s students drafted in 2021. The goal was to target state education funds to individual students rather than public school budgets.
That bill never made it through the Legislature, but HB 447 aims to establish a refundable tax credit up to $5,000 for every K-12 student to give parents the ability to choose the learning environment that works best for their child.
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It’s on its way to the House Revenue and Taxation Committee for approval. Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, is the bill’s sponsor, along with Rep. Jason Monks, R-Meridian and Senators Lori Den Hartog, R-Meridian, Doug Ricks, R-Rexburg and Scott Grow, R-Eagle.
Richardson supports any legislation that gives parents more of a say in their child’s education and allows his private school, which is available to select students because of an “angel donor,” to be sustainable long term.
