Language major learns grassroots lessons

An enthusiastic Spanish major, Kendra Hennig, AS ’05, set a goal to become as fluent in that language as she is in English. In the winter of her freshman year, she traveled to Costa Rica intending to immerse herself in the language.
But, after her six-week study-abroad stint turned into a five-month stay, she began to rethink her career.

“Just through studying the language, I developed a passion for Latin American culture,” Hennig says. “My stay in Costa Rica was such a growing experience that when I came back to UD in the fall, I really had to re-evaluate what I was doing.”

That reassessment resulted in Hennig’s taking a second major—anthropology—as well as minors in both Latin American studies and religious studies. It was a choice, she says, that had the unexpected effect of making her path through college clearer.

“It might seem like a very diverse combination of studies, but in many ways, it’s actually a perfect marriage,” says Hennig, who after two years with Teach for America is now the director of volunteer development and education with the nonprofit organization American Youth Understanding Diabetes Abroad (AYUDA).

“I had very much enjoyed my Spanish track, but after living in Costa Rica, I realized that I wanted a wider academic background, and because there’s such a rich anthropological history for Latin America, anthropology looked very appealing,” Hennig says.

“I never guessed what a great little niche I would find for myself, but taken together, my courses gave me the opportunity to place what I was learning in an anthropological framework. I can appreciate what brings people together in the world and what it is across time and geography that we all share.”

Hennig’s affiliation with AYUDA began the summer of her sophomore year, when she volunteered at a diabetes camp in Ecuador, established by AYUDA for 6-, 7- and 8-year-olds. The experience, which grew from a chance meeting with one of the founders of the organization, proved so rewarding that Hennig returned the following summer and says she would have returned a third time had not a paid opportunity with Teach for America been offered. Hennig was offered the chance to teach English as a second language to third-graders in Washington Heights, N.Y.

“I joined Teach for America for the challenge,” Hennig says, “and it proved to be a tremendous milestone for me. I wasn’t sure where to direct what I’d studied, and knowing that it had given me a world perspective and engaged me on an international level,

I really wanted to take what I’d learned and apply it in my own country.”

Teach for America has a very clear mission for social change, Hennig says, adding that although she never expected to be a teacher, the experience deepened her convictions.

“No matter what kind of situation people are living in, they have the same human hopes and goals, and I gained a tremendous appreciation for how resilient and complex kids’ minds and emotions are,”
she says.

Hennig says an opportunity to work with AYUDA presented itself just as her two-year assignment with Teach for America was winding down. Even though the choice was tough, she says, the option of working periodically
in Ecuador won out.

“Volunteering with AYUDA had piqued my interest in global health and nonprofit work, so I decided to take the position they offered,” Hennig says.

That opportunity entailed overhauling AYUDA’s teaching program, and so after completing her master’s degree in education at Pace University, Hennig relocated to AYUDA’s U.S. headquarters in Washington, D.C. She now trains AYUDA volunteers and serves as a crucial liaison to corps members.

“The real key in my job is education, because a lot of these kids and their families experience a loss of hope over a disease that really is quite manageable,” Hennig says. Volunteers set up grassroots outreach projects and family workshops, and they operate Campo Amigo, a weeklong national diabetes camp for young people ages 4-20 with type 1 diabetes.
Although literacy, poverty and cross-cultural barriers present challenges, as well as the perception of inexperience (AYUDA is run and staffed primarily by young adults), Hennig says that finding and establishing common ground isn’t difficult if effective communication is achieved.

“When we go to Ecuador, we visit all the poorest provinces and make a lot of home visits, because AYUDA’s mission, ultimately, is to empower others to serve as agents of change in diabetes communities around the world,” Hennig says.
She adds that although it’s clear to families living with type 1 diabetes that corps members are there to help and have brought the adequate tools and training to do so, initial mistrust means volunteers must be particularly skilled in cross-cultural communication.

“You can’t really understand human groups with just numbers and data and statistics,” Hennig says. “You have to get to know a group of people before you can interact with them or begin to know anything about them.

“My background in anthropology has allowed me to look at a group of people and be able to communicate with them using a variety of methods. I can evaluate motives and figure out why it is they are doing what they are doing. Understanding really lies in communication, I’ve found, because when you communicate with someone—especially if they are from a different socio-economic background, culture and literacy level—you need to be very careful about how you translate your message. It’s a fine balance, but if you can achieve it, you can open up a lot of doors.”

—Becca Hutchinson