Board of Directors: Meet Baker Henson!

World Camp has been an important part of my life since college and founding the organization with Laura Ivey and Brenna Dorrance way back in 1999. I have been on the board in some shape or form since then and spent 10 years working on regular World Camp programming in Malawi. My first trip  to Africa to set up World Camp seems so long ago. 

During our 1st volunteer program we were novice, to say the least….To think that we designed, ordered, paid for, shipped, and distributed 10,000 T-shirts to the World Camp students during our first year with volunteers. Especially  since the T-shirts arrived the very last day that we were in country!!! We traveled as a group of 10 from South Africa to Malawi and back by car, leading camps along the way; crazy.  

We have come a long way. Our new Mediserv program is one example. This coming October I am leading a group of doctors and nurses to Lilongwe, Malawi to operate on 150-200 people who desperately need surgical care. There are only 37 registered surgeons in the entire country of 16.5 million people. This will be World Camp's first of several medical projects. It was also great to see World Camp expand to India and Honduras; we hope to return there soon! 

I am proud of World Camp's accomplishments and I look forward to the future. On occasion I still see a worn out World Camp T-shirt on a Malawian child from that first year. 

I look forward to each project and I thank you all for your support!

Baker Henson

Joined the WC Board: 1999 when I founded the Board of Directors 

Education: pursuing an M.D.; currently in surgical residency

Age: somewhere in my 30s

Current Location: Harrisburg, PA

Originally From: Boone, NC

Current Position: Vice President World Camp Inc; General Surgery Resident

WC Experience: yes

First Volunteered: N/A

Most Excited About: expanding WC's health work to the Mediserv program. 

Favorite Malawian Dish: Carlsburg

Favorite WC Moment: There are too many great ones to single any out. We have all had great moments at the projects; watching the presentations of the students, teaching that one student who finally really gets it on the final day of the project, etc. We also have all had great moments on safari; some of you will remember Pete Golf cracking the front windscreen of the landrover with his rear end. I had to drive 7 hours back to Lilongwe from Zambia in the rain with a cracked windscreen…thanks Pete.