Jon Pedley is making a big change. He is giving up his life as a businessman for a life of helping others. He is trading his beautiful farmhouse in England for life in a mud hut (小屋) in Uganda, East Africa.
Pedley admitted that he had not always led a very positive life. At times he drank too much and got in trouble with the law. "I had always put the pursuit (追求) of money in front of everything else. As long as I was all right, I didn't care who I was hurting," says Pedley.
But a visit to Uganda in 2007 gave Pedley a new outlook on life. He was amazed at what he saw and how much the people there appreciated the work he was doing. "I worked there for a few days and these people who have nothing were thanking me by giving me bags of potatoes, which are a fortune for them, "he said. Now Pedley is selling his business, his $
1.5 million farmhouse, and his expensive car—and moving into a hut made of mud and boards in a small Ugandan village. There he will help run an organisation that hopes to improve the quality of life for people in the village of Kigazi. He will help to build schoolrooms for children and tanks to hold clean water for villagers. Today, people in Kigazi must walk two miles to a hospital, so Pedley will help to build doctors' offices, too.
Pedley's organisation will also work with English teenagers who are in trouble. The teens will be sent to a "camp" in Uganda that Pedley will run. The teens will live in mud huts and help to build water, health, and education facilities for kids in Kigazi, many of whom have lost their parents to poverty or disease. Pedley hopes the teens will see a side of life that might help them turn around their own lives and set them on a new and more positive path.
