City Year

Huw McDonald was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, to a middle-class, English-speaking family. Because his father practiced medicine in poor rural communities, he had a peripheral understanding of the inequities of apartheid. This understanding deepened when he joined his father in Kwa-Zulu Natal, where he graduated high school in 1997. He then returned to Johannesburg, where he spent two years at Wits University studying psychology and English, only to realize that medicine was his true calling. After traveling around Europe for several years, he returned to South Africa with a strong desire to become involved in development work, and he joined City Year South Africa.

It was this experience that changed his life and gave him the direction he had felt was missing. Even though he had lived in Johannesburg most of his life, he had never been to Soweto, where he now worked five days a week and saw poverty on a scale he had never imagined. During his year of service, McDonald and his team members provided educational support to children from the community, helped to put out a fire that razed a number of shacks, helped rebuild shelters for those left homeless, and helped run a soup kitchen.

This year, McDonald is a program coordinator at City Year. His dream of becoming a doctor is still very much alive, and he has applied to study medicine next year. He is also the lead singer of a local rock band and an amateur photographer.