Kelsey Elayne Holloway Murdoch and Dr. Francesca Lawson, Department of Humanities

I began my quest to graduate with University Honors during my freshman year at Brigham Young University. I was encouraged by friends, family, and professors, and I loved the challenge of the Honors Courses and the cultural exploration stimulated by the Great Works requirements. But like nearly every student involved in BYU’s Honors Program, the thesis looming as the last hurdle before graduation was a daunting and baffling task. I wanted to write a thesis that would do more than check off a final requirement and sit on a special shelf in the Harold B. Lee Library, honor though that is.

My light bulb moment came shortly after I returned from India in 2009. I had just spent the month of August working, laughing, sweating, teaching, and–hopefully–healing some of Southern India’s leprosy-affected people. Readjusting to life at BYU was more of a challenge than I’d anticipated, as many of my friends and family members were supportive of the work I’d done in India, but had little or no understanding of leprosy, its history, and the far-reaching effects of the disease. I found that many of my friends and neighbors hadn’t even realized leprosy still existed in the modern world.

I felt strongly inspired to write my Honors Thesis about Rising Star Outreach, the organization I had volunteered with in India, and the incredible growth and success Rising Star has achieved in a few short years since it was founded. Many people have dedicated much of their time, talents, and love to building Rising Star Outreach up from a few women taking rice to leprosy colonies to an internationally recognized non-profit organization that is on track to eradicate new cases of leprosy in Southern India by the end of 2013.

However, this idea presented many challenges, as writing a comprehensive history of Rising Star Outreach and its accomplishments required a broad understanding of the history of leprosy, the nature of the disease and its physical, emotional, and cultural effects, and much more. As an English Literature major with a minor in editing, I had the research and writing skills necessary to tackle such a project, but lacked much of the knowledge. With the help of the ORCA grant and my mentor, Dr. Francesca Lawson, as well as many of the people who created Rising Star Outreach, I was able to delve deep into the history of leprosy, leprosy in India, and the creation of Rising Star. I was able to include some first person interviews conducted by another BYU student, Kaity Gale, in my research. I felt very blessed to know that Kaity’s work had also been ORCA sponsored and met all the necessary requirements and had gone through the IRB approval process. Those interviews, although they are not often cited in my thesis, helped me gain a personal understanding of the utterly life-changing nature of leprosy. Through the interviews Kaity had conducted with the leprosy sufferers I had known during my time in India, I heard the personal stories of pain, despair, and occasionally triumph brought on by this terrible disease.

As I listened to the recordings of Kaity’s interviews, I realized that many of the people who contracted leprosy were hopeless, resigning themselves to a life as a street beggar, until Rising Star Outreach brought hope and independence back into their lives. With this idea of hope as a starting point for a cure, I began my research of the disease itself. I turned to sources from many different eras, to better understand how leprosy had been treated and understood at various points in history. I was further blessed to have the help and guidance of Karen Lundberg, a professor in BYU’s College of Nursing, who had lived in India and worked with Rising Star Outreach. Nurse Lundberg proofread my thesis and checked my medical
terminology and explanations, and she gave me the confidence to present the medical aspects of my findings at my thesis board without fear, even though I had had almost know medical understanding of leprosy a few months earlier.

My thesis evolved as I discovered more about leprosy and Rising Star Outreach, but the final product discusses not only the history of Rising Star Outreach, but also a brief history of leprosy throughout the world. A large portion of my thesis is dedicated to explaining the physiological and psychological effects of leprosy, as well as the cultural scourge of the disease. My thesis was granted full approval by my thesis review board, and it is now being used by Rising Star Outreach to promote their organization and teach volunteers about leprosy and its many ramifications. Rising Star Outreach will be producing a larger run of copies of my thesis for distribution to volunteers and donors worldwide.