People travel to the continent of Africa all the time. Pastors go on mission trips, middle-aged adults go on spiritual journeys and families go to see exotic animals. It is not often, however, that a teenager will graduate high school early to work at an orphanage there. Meri Hollis West, a senior at Tupelo High School, is one such rarity.

“At first it was because I hated high school,” West said when asked her reasoning behind this movement, “but then I did Big Brothers, Big Sisters and it made me want to help others, and then I found an orphanage in Africa that I wanted to help with.”

Initially, when West first started looking for places she could help, her options didn’t look good.

“I applied to other places in Africa and I didn’t get in because of my age,” West said. “Then I talked to Hannah Kimbrough. She gave me the connection of where she went and I contacted the lady who is the head of global connections there. It’s called Limuru Children’s Centre in Kenya.”

The LLC is an orphanage in Kenya, which is one hour north of Nairobi. The organization rescues children who have been neglected, abused or abandoned. In addition, the LLC has two locations that provide daycare for children who have been identified as needing extra care by social workers. These children attend a preschool program and are fed twice a day. The LLC also provides financial support for some students to attend secondary school. There are two LLC locations that employ 14 teachers and six volunteers at each site.

West encourages anyone who has the chance to graduate early to do so.

“Go for it,” she said. “To me, my spending my time in Africa is a lot more beneficial than spending time here. For some people it’s not like that, but there’s a lot you can do with an extra semester off from school.”

West is also not particularly concerned about health risks that she may face on her journey.

“Everyone’s freaking out about this Ebola stuff, but if this is something I have to do then I figure I’ll be taken care of,” she said.

For some people, early graduation may be a daunting process fraught with difficulties. For West, it was as though everything had arranged itself ahead of time.

“Before I knew I was going to graduate early, I doubled up on math last year,” West said. “I took economics last year too, so that worked out perfectly. Block schedule made it really easy.”

West is very thrilled at her upcoming trip. Every day is one step closer for West to be where she is needed.

“I leave Jan. 10,” she said. “I’ll be gone three months. I’m so excited. I’d leave tomorrow if I could.”