Two years ago, Meredith Hillman picked up a globe and gave it a spin.
Wherever it stopped, she decided, would be the target of her humanitarian efforts. It stopped on Uganda.
“I thought I was going to fix poverty,” said the ATB Financial Red Deer retail development manager.
And she’d do it entirely on her own. “I didn’t go through an organization because I couldn’t find an organization that would accomplish what I wanted to accomplish,” said Hillman, 26. “The reason why I went by myself was just personal growth and to learn who I was.”
She quickly found out. After raising $10,000 by collecting donations and selling home-made jewellery, Hillman took a three-month leave of absence to travel at her own expense to Uganda. She volunteered most of her time in an orphanage housing 20 children where she cooked, cleaned and taught Sunday school.
“As soon as the community found out there was a white person (teaching), all of a sudden it went from 10 kids to 300,” she said of the Sunday school attendance. “They would come from all over to see this white ‘Mzungu’.”
Hillman also visited local villages and witnessed the conditions at a refugee camp in northern Uganda. “I just wanted to get a better grasp and first-hand understanding,” she noted. “You see all these World Vision commercials and hear stories but it doesn’t really affect you until you actually hear it and see it first-hand.”
What she saw would shock most. “I can’t even describe the living conditions,” said Hillman. “At first I was like, ‘I cannot do this because I do not have a shower. I do not have a toilet. I have to cook over a fire. I have to hand-wash my clothes. I have chickens in my bed. I can’t do this.’ ”
Hillman’s low point came when she contracted malaria. “I thought I was dying,” she said. “They said I was dying and I was prepared for that.” Still, Hillman was more concerned with the local children who surrounded her in the hospital. “That was really hard,” she noted. “Knowing that there are kids in the village that are probably feeling the same way I am right now and they have nothing. It was so painful for me to see.”
But Hillman was able to fight off the disease and make a real difference in the communities she visited. Among her contributions were offering music lessons, donating shoes and ATB Financial T-shirts, and bringing several used soccer balls for the children. “When they got them, all the kids were just so excited,” Hillman smiled. “They gave me their local soccer ball for a trade, made up of manure, bags, rope and banana leaves, anything they could find.” She said the children had never played with an actual soccer ball before and were nervous. “If it was a muddy day, they did not want to play with their ball and get it wet. … I said, ‘That’s OK, we’ve got 30 balls, go nuts.’ They really treasured stuff like that.”
Of all her contributions, Hillman is most proud of the water system she helped build for her village. Hillman hired local workers to dig the trench and build the system, which empowered the workers and contributed to the local economy. “I’ll never forget walking up the road and looking at how much they accomplished and thinking: “I really hope that this works,’ ” said Hillman. “All of a sudden water just shot up out of this pipe and into the air. Everybody was running with their yellow jugs wanting to fill them up and they were dancing and bathing in it. They were just so excited.”
Hillman also used her financial expertise to offer local villagers budgeting and banking advice, and provided loans to local entrepreneurs from the funds she had raised. “They don’t have a lot of money and they don’t know how to spend their money wisely either,” Hillman pointed out.
When her three-month stay was over, Hillman found it difficult to leave. Especially tough was saying goodbye to a young Ugandan girl who had touched her heart. “Grace was not loved by anybody,” Hillman said. “Hearing what she’s had to go through at such a young age and having no mother figure and no friends, beaten and abused by men, and she’s 12 or 13.” Grace made such an impact on Hillman that the Albertan is attempting to adopt her. “I think she actually started feeling safe when I was there and we became good buddies,” Hillman said. “Knowing that I was leaving and not knowing where she was going and how she would be treated was really difficult.”
While planning for her trip, Hillman was overwhelmed by ATB’s encouragement. “There’s a sense of loyalty that I’ve always had with ATB but it’s definitely made me value ATB more,” Hillman said.
When asked to reflect on how her work helped the people of Uganda, Hillman shook her head. “Honestly, I think that they helped me more than anything. I went there thinking that I was going to change them and I was going to rule the world and clear out poverty in the country of Uganda. My heart is what changed.”
Despite all the hardships she faced on her journey, Hillman said she would go back. “I would do it in a heartbeat.”
