Gwinnett Daily Post

Staff Photo: John Bohn Bridgette Boylan is an interior designer with a business located in Norcross. Boylan regularly travels to a remote region of Kenya, where she has painted and redesigned several buildings in the Maruri slum.

NORCROSS -- Bridgette Boylan knew she wanted to visit Africa since she was a little girl. When she was 9 years old, Boylan wrote a paper about Ethiopia and she had found her destiny.

"It's one of those soul things. If you listen to those little whispers deep down inside of you, they'll tell you things about yourself that you've known all your life, but squash down," the Norcross interior designer said. "I had a lot of people who told me to get real. But if you really follow that passion deep inside your soul, it will take you places that you never thought you'd find yourself."

Boylan decided to take her first trip to Africa in 2008 with a church organization. With a group of missionaries, she dug trenches and laid down pipes which brought fresh water to villages, but she was also living better than most of the native people.

"That's what I call the 'tour bus trip.' We stayed in missionary housing -- running water, clean rooms, three meals a day -- it was cushy and enlightening," Boylan said. "I remember riding back from our hard day's work and I saw the Marthare Slum, the world's third largest slum, in the distance and all you could see was a wall of tin. I asked, 'What is that?' and everyone said, 'Oh, we don't go over there. That's hardcore, bad stuff.' I decided I wanted to come back and go there."

Ten days later, she was back in the states trying to figure out how to make her way back over the pond to help those living in the slum city located next to Kenya's capital of Nairobi.

As luck would have it, she met Connie Cheren, the President and Founder of Partners for Care, a small Alpharetta-based nonprofit focused on the elimination of HIV/AIDS and other preventable diseases in Kenya, specifically in slums. She knew she had found her calling.

In 2010, Boylan joined Cheren's team and for three weeks, they worked, slept, ate and prayed in the Kenyan slum with the residents.

"That was the beginning of an incredible journey with some amazing Kenyan staff over there," she said.

She has returned two other times to work in the slum city. The group works a tremendous amount on AIDS education, prevention, testing and discussions, opened a medical clinic with Kenyan doctors, has a band who has a music ministry to teach the young people about abstinence, distributes bed nets, started sport teams and teaches Kenyans through high school level at the Second Chance room.

But as an interior decorator, she felt embarrassed. She felt like she had nothing to offer the Marthares until one day she had an idea: It's time to paint.

In the one-stop-shop for Partners for Care that holds the theater for children, music center, Second Chance school room and medical clinic, Boylan decided she had enough with the beige mud walls.

With local paint and a hand-made ladder, she created a blue sky on the ceiling and adobe red walls, which were decorated with local art, tapestry and bowls.

"I've never seen a group of grown men walk into a room and weep. The transformation that it gave to their world was incredible," she said. "Our senses are stimulated everyday, so we take it for granted. They didn't know their emotions could be stimulated by colors on a wall. No matter where you are, no matter what your circumstances, we can be empowered by simple, nice things."

She has also built relationships with artisans in the slum by buying their goods. She brings them back to the U.S., sells them again under the name Inua and brings 100 percent of the proceeds back to the artisans.

"It's giving people hope by using their God given gifts. It gives them a reason to get up every day," she said. "We all seek purpose. It validates who we are"

Boylan will always be passionate about helping those in Africa because she knows where she's from.

"We lose (Kenyan) babies from diseases that could have been prevented. It's hard for me to sit over here and know that and not do something about it," she said. "I honestly believe that we're blessed as the richest nation in the world to bless other people. I truly believe that. We have to pay it forward and pay it back."

Boylan's next visit is a month-long trip in October.

For more information about Partners for Care, visit www.partnersforcare.org.