Andria Enns, a junior at Park University from Lee&#x92;s Summit, is getting to see lots of the world she wants to change through better communication.</p><p>Enns, who is majoring in public relations and broadcasting, will be leaving next month for a nearly month-long stay in Amman, Jordan, most of which is being financed through grants from the Creative Learning foundation and United Planet. In August, Enns was awarded a $1,000 scholarship from America&#x92;s Unofficial Ambassadors, a Creative Learning initiative aimed at enhancing the capacity of local organizations around the world to improve lives in their communities. More recently, she won the $2,000 grand prize in the 2011 United Planet Day Contest for an essay she wrote about her 2010 trip to Uganda, where she worked on a peace journalism project. In Jordan, Enns will work for Friends of the Global Fund, a nonprofit organization aiming to end malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Toward those ends, she will be writing grant proposals, creating marketing materials and doing video journalism.</p><p>Currently the editor of the Stylus, Park University&#x92;s student newspaper, Enns journeyed out of the United States for the first time last year, when she traveled for a month in Uganda with Steven Youngblood, a Park University broadcasting professor who received funding for the trip from the U.S. State Department.</p><p>Enns&#x92; friends pointed out that most Americans choose places like England or Mexico as their first foreign destination. But due to her desire to make a positive impact, &#x93;I decided to go to Sub-Saharan Africa,&#x94; she said.</p><p>&#x93;The purpose of the trip was to go to different cities and facilitate seminars on peace journalism, which is when editors and journalists make decisions that lead to conversation and peace,&#x94; Enns said. &#x93;In Uganda, there is a lot of inflammatory writing and conflict-ridden journalism, especially during their election cycles. We talked about how journalists could write in a way that gives people the facts, not opinion.&#x94;</p><p>Enns wrote a radio story about her experiences in Uganda that aired on KCUR-FM, she said. </p><p>In Jordan, she will be producing weekly broadcast reports and writing about her experiences for the United Planet blog and her school newspaper.</p><p>In the future, Enns added, she would like to complete a master&#x92;s degree and combat sexually transmitted infections through a career in public health communication.</p><p>&#x93;One reason sexually transmitted infections are spread is because people aren&#x92;t comfortable talking about them,&#x94; Enns said, explaining the theme that links her interests in peace journalism and public health: &#x93;Problems arise when people are afraid to talk to each other.&#x94;</p><p>Enns, who was home schooled in Lee&#x92;s Summit, said she inherited her social consciousness from her parents, who taught her the importance of being active in issues through the democratic process. &#x93;And college provides a lot of opportunities to be active,&#x94; she said.</p><p>One of the moving memories Enns has cultivated as a result of her activism stemmed from her visit to a village outside of Gulu, Uganda, which was in the grips of a terrible drought last year.</p><p>&#x93;I saw a little boy and, though we didn&#x92;t speak the same language, we sat down and talked,&#x94; Enns recalled. &#x93;When I saw his big swollen belly, I realized that whenever someone had told me to eat my vegetables because kids were starving in Africa, it was him they were talking about. I thought I&#x92;d seen extreme poverty before, but that was a life-changing moment.&#x94;</p><p>Enns also had a near life-ending moment in Uganda.</p><p>Her group had been planning to watch the World Cup final at a restaurant in the Ugandan capital of Kampala but, at the last minute, decided not to go.</p><p>The next morning, Enns said, she heard on the news that terrorist-planted bombs at the restaurant killed more than 70 people who had gathered there during the game.</p><p>&#x93;It was really frightening,&#x94; Enns said, adding that she still has an ad for the restaurant that had been clipped out in anticipation of the outing.