ESCONDIDO ---- Less than a week after receiving her business degree during a June 15 graduation ceremony at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Amber Peet was on a plane bound for Malawi on a humanitarian mission.
So was her father.
The San Pasqual High School alumna journeyed to the sub-Saharan village in southeast Africa with her father to check on "Wheelchairs for Education," one of several yearlong humanitarian projects Cal Poly seniors can choose from, per a graduation requirement.
Peet said she chose initially to get involved in the Malawi project because a pastor friend in San Diego had spoken to her many times about his experiences growing up in the Third World village.
Peet said she also felt that God had a hand in her mission.
"My pastor friend, Noel Musicha, is from Malawi, and from what he had said about his country, I knew that Malawi was where God was leading me --- where I needed to direct my energy," Peet said.
"My heart is really into helping people in Third World countries."
Peet said she and 24 classmates raised more than $100,000 during the school year to pay for 140 wheelchairs to be shipped from China to Malawi, and $50,000 in education grants for village children. She said there was enough money left to send 280 wheelchairs to villagers in Peru.
"That's a pretty remarkable amount of money for a bunch of college students to raise," she said.
Peet said most of her fellow students had also planned to visit Malawi after graduation to talk to those who were using the wheelchairs. She said that by graduation, as rising fuel costs pushed up the cost of the trip to $2,500 each, all the other seniors had to back out.
"That's when I asked my dad to come with me," Peet said. He was quick to agree, she said.
"I love to travel and see different cultures and enjoy the beauty of other countries," said her father, Ron, a math teacher for 27 years at San Pasqual High School. "One of the advantages of being a teacher is having the time during the summer to take trips like this, and it gave me some excellent quality time to spend with my daughter."
Although the 140 wheelchairs the Cal Poly students purchased had not yet arrived while the Peets were in Malawi, Amber Peet said she saw evidence that the program is working.
"Before we left the country, I saw a little girl in a wheelchair, and on the back it said, 'Wheelchairs for Education,' " she said. "So I know that at least those are getting into the right hands."
She said that in addition to the wheelchair project, she was pleased to learn more about classes to help village children learn English.
"If you live in Malawi and you don't learn to speak English, you can't get a job in the city and make any real progress," she said.
Ron Peet said that most Malawi villagers marry very young and face a difficult life.
"They have to learn English if they are going to get anywhere," he said. "Otherwise, they are going to get married very young --- usually by the time they are 14 --- and they are going to be stuck in the village, working to raise their family from a young age.
"For most of the people in the villages ... they're just trying to make it day to day. Very few of them make it to the city because they don't have even a basic education."
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