UI sophomore Hemali Batra checks her e-mail compulsively.

But immediate access to technology was a luxury she missed on her solo trip to Malawi last summer.

When she told her parents she planned to live in a town near Monkey Bay in Malawi, they were apprehensive.

“I said, My god, for three months?” said her mother, Rita Batra. “She is very self-motivated.”

Despite what seems like a daring trip, Hemali Batra said she was never afraid to pack up and leave.

“The people were really warm and welcoming; I was excited to learn about their culture,” she said.

The lack of technology was hard at times, she said, but it helped her realize how much Americans depend on it.

“I got to spend more time with other people; you miss the art of conversation,” the 18-year-old said.

While there she lived in a home for volunteers run by a community-based organization. She worked at a hospital and met with local officials and residents to determine how she could help through the organization.

Seventy-four percent of people in Malawi live below the international poverty line of $1.25 per day, according to UNICEF.

Batra said she decided she wanted to effect change after a prestigious internship in the World Vegetable Center in Taiwan she had when she was 16.

“I realized that even though we are students, we can still do something,” she said.

As a member of the debate team at Valley High School in West Des Moines, she said, she sometimes cited statistics about world hunger but didn’t realize the issue’s full effect until she saw it overseas.

Returning only a week before her first day of class, Batra said she experienced reverse culture shock upon arrival in the United States.

“It hurts sometimes when you see people throwing loads of food away,” she said.

In her mind, charitable organizations will too often “throw money at a problem” — a tactic she said isn’t the most effective way to deal with core issues. She hopes to instead empower communities to help themselves.

“I don’t want the accomplishment to be known as our work. I want them to feel as though they achieved that,” she said.

Batra said she plans to return to Malawi with around 10 members of the organization this summer to help implement plans.

After creating the organization with friends, she said, it now has around 15 members. Each has a different set of skills which help the organization function, she said.

“The beauty of a development group is that it is so collaborative that everyone can provide input,” she said.

Atish Dey, a member of Batra’s group, said he is working to get UI faculty involved and develop a website.

The 19-year-old said he joined the organization because of its ambitious goals.

“I am more than happy to give it my support,” he said. “I want to stay here and help out, even after I graduate I will stay involved as much as possible.”

Batra’s work for the organization and her trip completely changed her perspective on her own life, she said.

“Sometimes, I feel like I have lost all right to complain about anything,” she said. “I’ve learned so much.”