After an epic five-day journey including 4×4, bus, truck, ox cart, wading through rivers, trudging through bogs, and a blissful speedboat, I finally arrived in Andavaodak, Madagascar. I would spend my next three months here, diving, researching, and working in a remote paradise. This was the farthest point on the planet I have ever been, away from civilization and, as I was soon to find out, far away from proper medical care. The trip started out wonderful, diving or boat marshaling in the morning, studying in the early afternoon, capped off by football games on the sandy white beaches.

It was that trip though that changed my life. While I was enjoying that paradise, I was diagnosed with a corneal ulcer, I was to be administered antibiotic eye drops and given Codeine for the pain. However, things got worse, much worse, very quickly. Faced with the very real possibility of going blind, I had to orchestrate an emergency evacuation – in the middle of a hurricane.

Nothing prepares you for watching your own eye be cut open.

Nothing prepares you for an operation in a dinghy room in the third world.

And nothing prepares you for having it done by a doctor partially paralyzed by a stroke.

The only unfortunate thing in all this is that it took the loss of my vision to begin to see this more clearly.

Bart Skorupa recovered from the third world surgery and can now see fine, but that experience changed the trajectory of Bart’s life and career. He had to rely upon locals and missionaries for help. He only had the supplies that the locals had available and from that experience he decided that he wanted to help communities like the one that helped him.

He and Kyle Maclaren Miller founded a 501c3 charity working to create a world beyond poverty by investing in groundbreaking ideas, empowering local leaders, and engaging communities.

Groundwork Opportunities (GO) identifies and partners with local leaders in the developing world who have designed sustainable programs to address community-based issues, such as a lack of clean water, healthcare, or education. Once a partnership is established, GO provides the community with the start-up capital and guidance needed to turn their vision for a better world into a reality that will scale across multiple countries.

We first learned of GO thanks to a friend introducing us to GO’s volunteering opportunities in Africa. Then we found out that not only were Bart and Kyle offering some great opportunities for people to help and get involved, but they were offering volunteering for free. This is rare, and we are very excited to introduce GO to our Meet, Plan, Go! audience.

Listen to Bart’s complete eye ulcer story in full in this NPR interview – Blood and Faith.

And don’t find yourself in a situation like Bart’s without insurance. See how World Nomads can get you covered.

Learn more about Groundwork Opportunities and volunteering in our post “Volunteering Vision“.

I have been an avid supporter of Groundwork Opportunities (GO) since it was founded in 2008. I had just moved to San Francisco and I wanted to get involved in the community by volunteering for a local non-profit. I was first introduced to GO because a close friend of mine, Jennifer O’Connor, had just started working as their Development Director.

Heather's fundraising supported building beehives for a Ugandan village

She invited me to attend their first fundraising event and I instantly was attracted to their mission to create a world beyond poverty by investing in groundbreaking ideas, empowering local leaders, and engaging communities. The more I learned about GO’s mission and all of the diverse community led projects they were involved in, the more passionate I became about this organization. GO’s 100% to cause donation model and transparency was so inspiring that I wanted to do more than just donate or attend their events; I wanted to volunteer, fundraise, engage my network of friends/colleagues, and leverage my professional skills to increase the scope of its operations.

This past June, I joined GO’s racing team and became a GO champion. I chose to run the San Francisco Half Marathon on July 31, 2011 (my first race to date) and individually fundraise on behalf of GO. GO supports a model development farm in Masaka, Uganda that teaches other farmers and communities how to bring lasting food security to their homes, businesses and organizations. The model farm is used both as a training center and a community center for all program participants and gives farmers the skills they need to get out of poverty PERMANENTLY.

In an effort to build 30 beehives that would help 10 farmers to grow honey and get out of poverty forever, I focused my campaign to raise $1,000 to do just that. The support I received during my fundraising was remarkable! I was so humbled by everyone’s generosity and I ended up raising over $2,100, which ended up being enough to build 50+ beehives. Despite a foot injury during my training, I was able to cross the finish line with a smile on my face and know that I specifically ran those miles for the lives in Uganda that would be impacted forever.

Volunteers helped construct the beehives

Volunteering for GO has been an amazing and rewarding experience on both a social and professional level. I have strengthened my communication, negotiation, marketing and event planning skills. Volunteering has enabled me to be more connected with the local San Francisco philanthropic community and various business networks, while building lasting relationships that share my positivity and passion with my coworkers and customers.

As a result of my philanthropy efforts, I was recognized by many of my colleagues at Thomson Reuters, as well as the CEO, who presented me with a company Community Champion Award this past October. The best part was the award was a grant donation for GO! Through my ongoing volunteer work at GO, I have learned the phrase “You Give What You Have” which, in my view, means that whether someone only has a $1 to spare, advice to give, or volunteers their time, it all really makes a difference in helping those in need. With GO, I have learned we can demonstrate the power of how just one person can make a difference and help change the world.

Heather will be visiting Uganda this summer to see the impact of her project

Learn more about Groundwork Opportunities and volunteering in our post “Volunteering Vision“.

I first started fundraising with Groundwork Opportunities (GO) in the summer of 2008. The first fundraiser, actually. Over a beer and a couple of bar napkins, Bart showed me his and Kyle’s idea for what they were trying to accomplish. It wasn’t going to take much to convince me. I’d come from a background of organizing, was working in education, and was just getting my photography career going. We decided to throw a party at One Rincon Hill. Our goal was a few thousand dollars. It was going to change people’s lives.

Over the years I helped coordinate events. Throw more fundraisers. I auctioned off photos to help raise money and it gave me confidence to continue to work at building this career while working a full-time job. I watched Bart give himself to this thing entirely and that helped me keep going when I had no idea where I was headed.

We talked about my going into the field at some point. I really wanted to make that happen. Not just because I love to shoot and travel, but because I thought I was missing something fundamental by living my life on this side of the planet and helping to change someone else’s life on the other side. I believed whole-heartedly in what GO was doing, and what I was helping them to do, but it felt unfinished for me, personally. I knew that I was never going to truly understand what kept these people going day after day after day if I didn’t go out there into the world to see what this is really about. And to see who it’s about.

It was in a conversation about something unrelated that Kyle made a passing comment about making a trip to East Africa. That was in the spring of 2011. He ended up not making that trip. But, after eight weeks of planning, I had enough gear and enough time off to do it.

To explain what it was like to arrive in places that are war torn and filled with joy, it just doesn’t work in formats like this. Imagine the most moving moments of your life. The times when you realized that there was simply no way you could possibly exist, the you who you are, without other people. It was something like that. When I arrived home I had a difficult time understanding what was happening, or how the streets could be so clean, and calm, or how they could even exist at all.

I found myself in awe of what, before I left, was common-place. Literally staring, blank-faced, in the middle of streets. I also found myself in elevators with people not talking, or looking at one another. I found myself slipping back into craving things. The best that I can sum up volunteering in the field is that I think of my life now in two pieces. I think of my life before I went into the field with GO, and I think of everything I want it to be after that experience.