While most students were at home enjoying the summer break, Otago Polytechnic nursing student Anna Watkins was in Nepal investigating leprosy.
Driven by a strong desire to help people, Watkins took up a scholarship with Leprosy Mission NZ and travelled to Nepal for two weeks with eight other New Zealanders.
She and her fellow travellers had returned home with a mission to raise $30,000 for an x-ray machine at Leprosy Mission's Anandaban Hospital.
She said she was struck by how the suffering of people with leprosy in Nepal was made worse by the misconceptions people had about the disease.
Children of leprosy sufferers were taken out of school, the disease was still considered a legitimate reason to divorce someone and those with the disease lived in colonies on the outskirts of town.