By Katy Gagnon
A Little Neck teen with a track record of giving back will embark on a humanitarian mission in Africa this summer.
Townsend Harris High School senior Kelly McCann was selected from thousands of applicants to be one of 22 United Nations Youth Ambassadors to travel to southern Africa next month and work on projects that will enhance the school community there.
The projects are funded by Protecting Futures, a program sponsored by Tampax and Always, whose goal is to keep young African girls in school. It is estimated that girls in southern Africa miss an average of four days of school per month because they lack the sanitary products they need to manage their menstrual periods and must rely on rags when there are poor or non-existent plumbing facilities.
McCann, 17, will be abroad for a little less than six weeks and will travel to rural parts of Namibia and South Africa. As part of their mission, McCann and her fellow ambassadors will help build houses, paint schools and other classroom projects. McCann said she will also spend time with African children affected by HIV or AIDS. This, she said, will probably be the most moving aspect of her trip.
"I hope to have a better sense of my place in the world, a better perception of how other people live, what I can do to help other people and how thankful I should be," she said.
Born and raised in Little Neck, McCann said she does not have any family living outside the country, but most of her friends either come from immigrant families or are immigrants themselves and the trip is her chance to experience other cultures.
"In Queens, everyone is from different areas. You go outside and see people from all over the world," she said, adding that the biggest shock she expects in Africa is being different from everyone else rather than everyone being from different ethnicities.
In 2006, McCann got her first taste of life overseas when she was awarded a scholarship to study in Turkey for a few weeks. There, McCann became interested in the Middle East and developed a desire to pursue global affairs.
After returning to Little Neck, McCann became a HIV/AIDS peer educator, a student who speaks with younger students about sexually transmitted diseases and safe sex practices. She is also captain of her school track team and loves listening to classic rock.
In the fall, McCann will attend State University of New York at New Paltz and plans to study Arabic.
As McCann sees it, one advantage to being young and helping out is becoming more open to different experiences.
"If I allow myself to be sculpted by all the wonderful things around me, I will be able to deal with them better when I get older," she said.
