Meet one of our newest international volunteers,Matthew Jones. Matthew is a UK trained doctor and our firstAurora Fellow. He recently arrived in South Sudan where he will serve for up to twelve months at St. Theresa Hospital in Nzara.

This is his first video blog. In it, Matthew shares some of his first experiences, his hopes for his time in South Sudan, and what he wants to try to achieve by sharing these video diaries.

Ultimately, Matthew sees this journey as a process, giving him the opportunity to start again in a sense. He hopes to gain a better understanding of who he is as a person and a doctor. He is committed to not simply letting this experience pass by, but to grow in a way that allows him to come to an understanding of how his values and experience can serve the people in South Sudan.

The only hope I have of understanding is to be humble and just listen.

Hello, my name is Dr. Matthew Jones. I am a UK trained doctor who is spending the next 6-12  months in South Sudan working in a hospital in the west of the country in a town called Nzara. I just wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself and to begin to describe a little bit of the journey that’s brought me to this point. But, also then to look forward to the challenges and opportunities ahead. I spent three years working as a doctor in Britain and enjoyed the experience immensely. But I have reached a point where I decided that I wanted a break from the conventional career structure and really just the opportunity to travel to a distant land and see a little bit more out of the world.

I think particularly when you are leaving home and you are leaving your loved ones, I think there is a tendency to allow an experience to slightly pass you by. I think we all sort of spend our lives in these periods of transition when you are thinking of home, when you are far away.

Click to listen to the full blog:

 

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