It started a movement - Wayne Centrone

This week marks the beginning of our annual summer Team Perú outreach trip. Over the coming days, volunteer team members will be arriving in Lima from around the U.S. to meet our HBI staff. 

This is our 22nd or 23rd . . . or 24th, Team Perú summer trip. We're not exactly sure the trip number - but one thing is for certain, for over two decades HBI has been taking a team of volunteers from around the globe to participate in a service learning project over the months of June and July.

The trip started out of our (my wife and I) church. When I was in medical school, we started taking teams down to Perú to work in schools doing short term medical projects. I'd recruit attending physicians and volunteer healthcare providers and we'd pull off a big mobile clinic for two weeks.

After a few years of the schools based medical outreach, we realized we weren't doing anything that was sustainable or really making a big impact. That's when we starting thinking about doing something different. That something different eventually became HBI.

Now some two-plus decades later - we are still taking volunteers. The focus of the Team Perú project is to provide volunteers an intensive experience with our staff, collaborative partners and communities working alongside one another and learning and growing.

We are less focused on a specific outcome from the trips - and more focused on the impact the experience has on the life of the volunteer. We think of the Team Perú projects as "Bridge Building" trips. And, our hope is participants will walk away from their Team Perú trip experience with a clear understanding that everyone can build or be a bridge for change in the world.

We see the Team Perú trips as a part of the movement that is HBI. So, over the next couple of weeks, we invite you to connect with the project. We'll be posting video, blogs, and social media updates. Stay connected and learn more about how all of us can be a bridge. 

Thanks for all of the support.

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