Northwestern University
GlobeMed Quarterly Volume 4, Issue 1 Fall 2009
Building a generation global health leaders:
www.globemed.org/northwestern
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- Since our chapter's founding, more than one hundred students have become members of GlobeMed at Northwestern. These members, along with hundreds of other students on the Northwestern campus, have participated in GlobeMed's high-impact programming. In addition to providing students with the knowledge and skills to address issues of global health, these events have mobilized participants to join in the movement for global health equity.
A new year for Globemed at NU Reflections on the summer, fall quarter 2009
How to Donate With support from GlobeMed, the H.O.P.E Center in Ho, Ghana is currently working on phase IV of their nutrition project, which aims to reduce the amount of malnutrition seen among children in the surrounding areas, especially in children under the age of five. However, we need your help! Our projects would not be possible without help from you, our family and friends! If you feel compelled to support us, there are two ways to donate: through online donations or through sending checks in the mail. Please see the attached letter for more information. Thank you for all your support! With your help, we can work together to fight for a brighter future.
Head nurse Margaret Asante stands outside the H.O.P.E.Centre as another day begins. The newest feature of the clinic, a pathology lab, was built to accommodate the needs of the Centre for diagnostic testing.
This past summer, the co-presidents of GlobeMed at NU—Lalith Polepeddi and Tiffany Wong— visited the H.O.P.E. Center, our partnership organization in Ho, Ghana. The center, which opened in April 2007, currently serves around 4,000 people in eight villages with child welfare clinics, childhood immunizations, maternal health classes, insecticide-treated bed net distribution, and family planning services. Also, GlobeMed members were busy raising funds and awareness through events such as the Global Marketplace and Health Week, along with utilizing social media in America’s Giving Challenge and initiating GlobeMed’s Imagine 2030 online campaign. We were able to accomplish so much this quarter thanks to all of your support and generous donations. Although we had a great start to this year, we are excited for 2010 and all the wonderful projects we can achieve through your support! Newsletter Staff Editors Carol Park Lily Ryzhkova
Contributors Dandan Liu Jonathan Shaffer Aimee Peng Tiffany Wong Lalith Polepeddi
Sponsored by the Northwestern International Program Development and Global Health Department
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GlobeMed Quarterly
The world in 2030, and the vital role of student leaders Jon Shaffer is the executive director of GlobeMed. (jonathanshaffer2007 @u.northwestern.edu)
Imagine the world in the year 2030. Go ahead, think about it. Is it different than the world we live in today? Do millions of people still die from preventable and treatable diseases? Do poor women still overwhelmingly die in childbirth? Are AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria still global scourges that disproportionately affect those living in poverty? Are global health leaders still squabbling over crumbs when they should be looking to secure the resources necessary to truly achieve global health equity? My vision is quite different. I see a world where all people have the opportunity to live a healthy and full life; where life expectancy is not determined by locale of birth, gender, or race. Then, the central question: How do we get from here, to there? Who will be shaping this better, more just world? The only logical answer that I can think of is: The students and the young people of today. We need an entire generation of student leaders who think radically and optimistically about the world that they are a part of. We need student leaders who think pragmatically about how they can contribute to this movement over the course of their lives. With more than 400 students at 19 universities, GlobeMed is working to build this movement for global health equity on college campuses now. Students have raised more than $150,000 to support 21 public health projects at grassroots organizations around the world. Nearly 50 GlobeMed students have traveled to their partner organizations and worked alongside the grassroots leaders to both strengthen the partnership and contribute to their efforts on the ground. What’s more, greater than 90% of the GlobeMed students surveyed this year reported that they intend to stay involved in global health no matter their career choice. Yet, significant gaps exist for stu(Continued on page 4) (Continued from page 2)
Welcome to Ghana! By: Tiffany Wong
Imagine showing up in a new country halfway across the world to stay with a host you’ve only met through e-mail. After a grueling 19hour ride, you get to the airport, shake hands, and get into an old, rickety Jeep to start the two-hour ride to the countryside. Everything is going well until it starts to rain. Then the car begins to slow, groaning down the muddy road as the sky begins to darken. And by the time the battery dies, it is nightfall and you are stranded on a bumpy dirt road, with not one car in sight. You can’t help but laugh and think to yourself, Welcome to Ghana. As the incoming co-presidents of GlobeMed at Northwestern, Lalith and I spent four weeks this summer in rural Ghana visiting our partner, the H.O.P.E. Centre, a primary health clinic that serves a population of roughly 4,000. Having spent two years raising both funds and awareness to support the Center, I was eager to see the clinic we worked to build and the projects that we continue to fund. We recently expanded clinic services by building a pathology lab to test for diseases such as malaria and HIV. Additionally, we support a child nutrition project that uses locally grown soybean plants to fortify the diets of malnourished children, and, through our adolescent sexual health resource center, train students to become peer educators and raise sexual health awareness in schools.
Most of our work focused on developing the next phase of the child nutrition program. By working with the nurses at the Center and with local community leaders, we were able to identify gaps in nutrition knowledge. Mothers understood that protein was essential for the diet, but were not implementing the soybean supplements provided by the clinic effectively. We developed a training manual and new peer education program for mothers to monitor the growth of children in their villages enrolled in the nutrition program. We launched the program by selecting two mothers in the neighboring village of Ando, who will report back to the nurses at the H.O.P.E. Center monthly. This peer education program also helps to lighten the burden of the nurses as the clinic is currently understaffed. As we’ve seen during monthly weigh-ins at the Center, local mothers seem to be taking the initiative seriously and are invested in the success of this project. To return to the opening story, it turned out to be quite the warm welcome to Ghana—within an hour, a kind taxi driver not only offered to help us, but turned around with his passengers to borrow a car battery from someone he knew down the road, offering to lead the way until we got home. I enjoyed my trip thereafter thoroughly, and am proud to be working with the H.O.P.E. Center as our partner clinic.
Pictures from Ho, Ghana
Tiffany Wong spends time with children during a training session about the soybean nutrition project.
Tiffany Wong and Lalith Polepeddi help plant soybeans with a machete.
Volume 4, Issue 1
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3D model offers virtual experience of clinic By: Lalith Polepeddi
This summer I had the opportunity to visit our partner in Ghana, the Health Outreach and Peer Education (H.O.P.E.) Centre. It was humbling to physically be at the same clinic at which several GlobeMedders before me had worked, and for which even more GlobeMedders campaign to support throughout the year. GlobeMed’s partnership with the H.O.P.E. Centre is unique since our fundraising efforts have directly expanded its facilities and the services offered. Last year, we supported the development of a diagnostic laboratory, which is now capable of testing blood for parasites common to the region. However, the nature of our global partnership is also inherently limited in its accessibility. We receive updates from the Centre through email, which are useful to provide rationale for fundraising, but they do not offer the visual context or the sense of immediacy that being physically present does. To this end, I constructed a 3D model of the H.O.P.E. Centre. During my first two weeks, I took dimensions of the rooms and property of the Centre, which I then translated into a modeling software
to develop the 3D model. The final product, a virtual clinic, was uploaded to Google Earth and situated on the Centre’s actual geographic coordinates. Using this tool, GlobeMedders can situate themselves at the Centre and virtually observe how their fundraising efforts at Northwestern have directly expanded the infrastructure and services at the Centre. As part of our movement for health equity, you can also visit the Centre remotely and virtually enter and negotiate the clinic as it appears in actuality. You can heck it o u t o n l i n e a t http://virtualclinicsite.org. So what comes next? We are fortunate to have a talented and motivated team at Northwestern who have already made a tremendous impact on our projects in Ghana. We raised over $2,500 this quarter by hosting a global marketplace and by participating in an online donation contest hosted by Facebook. These funds will directly support our work at the H.O.P.E. Centre, specifically a program to remedy malnutrition in children under five years of age. I’m excited to continue our work in 2010 as we advance the movement for health equity together.
Counterclockwise from the picture on the left: (1) Tiffany Wong walks toward a soybean farm with children from the community. (2) Lalith Polepeddi enjoys an afternoon snack of peanuts with one of the children. (3) Lalith Polepeddi learns firsthand about planting and harvesting in a community soybean farm.
Promoting health equity through social media By: Dandan Liu
“You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will live as one.” John Lennon Although more than thirty years have passed since the worlddebut of John Legend’s iconic song ―Imagine,‖ it seems as if its message has completely stood the test of time, surpassing the realm of popular culture and transforming into a source of inspiration for all generations all across the world. This past October, through the synergized, collaborative, and grassroots efforts of GlobeMed’s Imagine 2030 campaign, Lennon’s vision is one step further transformed into reality with regards to the fight for global health equity. Based on the technological prevalence of today, GlobeMed incorporated its Imagine 2030 campaign with America’s Giving Challenge, an onlinebased competition where organizations from all around the world competed for a $50,000 grand prize by rallying in the most number of donors. Daily $1,000 prizes were also awarded. Through strategic teamwork such as designated storm sessions in which members spread the word to family, friends, and even Bollywood movie stars via facebook, twitter, and email, GlobeMed was able to capture a top-ten spot, raising approximately $26,000 with 2,432 members. That’s $1,500 per chapter to support projects that empower communities with healthcare access! For Northwestern’s chapter, the money will go to support the ongoing services and projects of the H.O.P.E. Center. So just imagine by 2030 a world without health disparities, where all people, regardless of race, gender, and status will all have equal access to cures and treatment, and where ―the world will live as one.‖
The world in 2030, and the vital role of student leaders dents who want to engage in this movement at universities without GlobeMed chapters. For this reason, we believe that now is GlobeMed’s opportunity to rapidly expand to many more campuses and communities around the world. Over the next two years, we plan to grow from 19 to 60 chapters at universities across the nation. By seizing this opportunity to grow rapidly now, we can envision a world where tens of thousands of GlobeMed alumni are devoting their lives to global health and social justice. These students, now professionals, will work in the private, public, and NGO sectors across the globe to improve the health of the impoverished. If we are successful, this generation of global health leaders will help shape a world where all people have the opportunity to live a healthy life. Join with us in this movement: www.imagine2030.org. Let’s imagine a world in 2030 that we can be proud of: one that is more just, sustainable, and equitable.
Global Marketplace: Lucky finds on an unlucky day - Friday November 13, 2009 By: Aimee Peng
The Global Marketplace was held in the Norris Northwestern Room. Students shopped for items such as clothes, jewelry and shoes with upbeat music playing in the background.
Friday the 13th turned out to be rather lucky for some savvy shoppers. On November 13, GlobeMed members successfully transformed the Norris Center’s Northwestern Room into a Global Marketplace, a rummage salestyle fundraiser benefiting the H.O.P.E. Center in Ho, Ghana. Led by executive board members Katie Smiley and Alyson Weiner, GlobeMed members collected donations of gently used clothes, shoes, accessories, furniture and electronics from Northwestern students to be sold at the Global Marketplace. Priced between 50 cents and five dollars and bearing labels like Anthropologie, Forever 21, Lacoste and Marc Jacobs, the items sold at the Marketplace were both affordable and stylish. The sale was not only for the styleconscious on a budget, however – with
one table full of electronics and others dedicated to room décor and other miscellaneous items, there was something available for everyone. In addition, raffle tickets were sold for a variety of prizes, which included Chipotle gift cards and a new iPod shuffle. To promote this event – and to educate fellow students about GlobeMed’s cause – members covered the campus with flyers, handed out coupons and launched an online publicity campaign via Facebook. In addition, the Global Marketplace was featured by Northwestern University’s premier style magazine, Stitch, on its fashion blog. After being open to the public for only five hours, the Global Marketplace raised a total of $1,221.39 for the H.O.P.E. Center, which will benefit its child nutrition program. Leftover items were donated to charity.
The Health Week Collaborative: November 16-20, 2009 By: Lily Ryzhkova
Mid-November marked the next phase of the globalhealthu curriculum—one involving an intimate examination of the evolving role gender plays in global health. The week of November 16-20 coincided with Amnesty International’s Stop Violence Against Women week, and in honor of the focus, GlobeMed furthered the attention to gender at the university level by partnering with NCDC (Northwestern Community Development Corp) and EWH (Engineering World Health) to present Health Week. During the week, each student group sponsored a health-related event ranging from community involvement to global engagement. NCDC organized a thoughtful discussion with representatives from La Rabida Children’s Hospital and Rainbow Hospice, while EWH hosted
a student panel, offering rich dialogue about global health opportunities abroad. GlobeMed’s co-President Lalith Polepeddi served on the panel, contributing the GlobeMed model and its challenges and triumphs to the conversation. Health Week culminated with GlobeMed’s screening of ―A Powerful Noise,‖ a documentary featuring stories of three different women who, despite unfortunate circumstances, empower themselves and their respective communities through creative undertakings. The film includes Hanh, an HIV-positive woman living in Vietnam, who upon discovering her status founds an organization called Immortal Flower to provide support and guidance for others afflicted with HIV/AIDS. The second story is that of Madame Urbain, who, witnessing the abuse and neglect of women, provides learning and job opportunities through her organization called APAF. The third story follows Nada, a woman recovering
from the devastation of the Bosnian War, who organizes a cooperative to restore positive ethnic relations and provide employment for her community. The magnetic narratives nicely parallel the topics that were discussed during Health Week from local involvement to gender dynamics placing into a realistic context lessons in global health.
After screening ―A Powerful Noise‖, globalhealthu leaders Gabriela Escobar and Sana Rahim led a discussion on the lives of the different women and the issues they