“Author Archive”
Stories written by GHC FellowGlobal Health Corps pairs intelligent and passionate fellows with organizations that require new thinking and innovative solutions. We provide these young leaders with the tools to remain connected after their fellowship year finishes, deepening their ability to enact change through heightened skills and strong partnerships.
By Global Health Corps Fellow
“Imagine if blood spilled by women in childbirth, unpaid labor & violence against them collectively mattered like war.” On May 3rd , ‘Women Under Siege’ retweeted this post written by a woman named Lauren Wolfe; she is a perfect stranger to me, but these 140 characters shook me. Maybe, I thought, we were looking at gender inequity in the wrong framework. Maybe if we looked at it in terms of tactical strategy, the battles waged by and against women every day would gain the attention and resources that they need. The numbers are all there.
May 15th, 2013 | Posted in Hub Full-Length Features | Read More »
By Global Health Corps Fellow
A supply chain is a network of people and processes that will cater to the end user, whom in my case are patients in resource poor settings. I have procured critical components for aircraft and engine systems, to improving the lead time performance of solar modules for retail & municipal entities. When I arrived to my village in Rwinkwavu, Rwanda and I was given a tour of the district hospitals I would be supporting, I immediately knew I was in for an entirely different experience. These are no longer widgets that I am procuring that will go on the roof of a building, but critical health commodities that will affect human lives. My work has not only been incredibly challenging, but also very fulfilling. I have learned a lot about supply chain challenges on a global scale and witnessed the effects of not having the right products at the right place at the right time. The Partners In Health Pharmacy Supply Chain Team had the pleasure of attending the International Association of Public Health Logistician’s (IAPHL) fifth Global Health Supply Chain Summit in Kigali, Rwanda.
May 15th, 2013 | Posted in Hub Full-Length Features,misc | Read More »
By Global Health Corps Fellow
“I shouldn’t tell you this, but I don’t even know who our safety captain is,” I told a GHC staff member over the phone as I “sheltered in place” in my boyfriend’s room in Cambridge, MA last Friday. At our initial orientation at Yale, we were grouped by our placement countries to discuss emergency plans and identify safety captains. Fellows based in Africa diligently discussed contingency plans for civil strife, riots, and natural disasters, already planning where they would hide $100 USD in a safe place should evacuation be necessary. In the US group, I wasn’t the only one checking my phone under the table, feeling like I didn’t have much to worry about it.
April 30th, 2013 | Posted in Global Health Corps,Hub Full-Length Features,misc | Read More »
By Global Health Corps Fellow
I used the title phrase because this is what my co-fellow kept saying when we both got sick and were moved between two hospitals for treatment. After reflecting on my experiences, I believe this now too. To have an impact and fully realize why you are in the global health equity movement, it takes some tough personal experiences sometimes to help one gain that constant drive towards social justice and health service equality in all communities of the world. A few months ago, in wee hours of the night – I witnessed my cousin lose her new born baby due to suffocation in her womb at a small public hospital under simple circumstances that could have been prevented. I was about to lose her too from accumulated air in her stomach if not for the arrival of a second nurse, just in time
April 5th, 2013 | Posted in Global Health Corps | Read More »
By Global Health Corps Fellow
Health Poverty Action principally works in Nyaruguru district, a remote and hard-to-reach region of Rwanda much in need of social services and improved infrastructures. In this short video, I present Kibeho, a small town in Nyaruguru district with a fascinating history of war and religion and a promising future.
March 30th, 2013 | Posted in Hub Full-Length Features,misc | Read More »
By Global Health Corps Fellow
My title at my GHC placement is the ‘policy assistant.’ I applied to this position because I wanted to see what it would be like to affect change for a large number of people through policy changes, instead of having a smaller, though no less important, reach through on the ground community work. I really had no experience in policy at all before starting this job, and didn’t really know what to expect. I thought I might ease into it, reading some of the organization’s policies, possibly learning about policy creation, or something of that nature. Instead, I jumped into the deep end and read the Affordable Care Act.
March 30th, 2013 | Posted in Hub Full-Length Features,misc | Read More »
By Global Health Corps Fellow
One of the things that first attracted me to the Global Health Corps was its partner model in which each fellow is placed with a partner fellow serving in the same organization, creating a fellowship team composed of one international fellow and one in-country fellow. As an American going to work in Malawi, I initially (and perhaps somewhat selfishly) thought that I would be the one getting the most out of this partnership. My co-fellow, Rodrick, was invaluable in terms of helping me learn Chichewa, navigate the mini-bus system, master the ins and outs of office etiquette and, on one occasion, recognize when my hemline was just a little too high by Malawian standards. Moreover, his knowledge of the Malawian healthcare system, his experience working in a clinic setting, and his boundless energy were crucial in helping me understand the intricacies of my work environment and keeping me energized and focused when I felt overwhelmed by the pressures of living and working in a foreign country.
March 27th, 2013 | Posted in Aid & Development,Global Health Corps,Hub Full-Length Features,misc | Read More »
By Global Health Corps Fellow
Many people in Southern Africa rely on the talents and skills they have learned over the years from their parents and grandparents to thrive and provide a livelihood for themselves and their families. Although having these skills is considered a norm in our African communities, very few people comprehend that such skill-sets are a beneficial necessity for a man, woman and child in these parts of the world to survive the harsh economic and political hardships that might behold them in the present and the future. Due to the inaccessibility of basic level education, a result of political administrational location and other circumstance beyond control, many Africans embrace unskilled and semi-skilled labour to ensure they are able to provide basic needs, such as shelter, water and food, for themselves and their families. With the dwindling opportunities in both secondary and tertiary education and scarce opportunities for professional employment, various populations highly rely on the skills they possess in order to enable themselves to survive and provide hope for their siblings, spouses and dependants They rely on their acquired acumen, observed entrepreneurial skills and circumstance in order to do jobs that can bring a dollar or more to save, eat and spare a little for their own luxuries.
March 26th, 2013 | Posted in Global Health Corps,Hub Full-Length Features,misc | Read More »
By Global Health Corps Fellow
I was four years old and late as usual for my ballet class, hurrying down the steps of the Harbor Club, where the most affluent people of London would meet for their day’s exercise and post-workout cocktails. As I rushed down the steps, I saw before me a beautiful face I would recognize anywhere. Princess Diana was returning from a tennis class and oh…my…god, I whispered in awe, hello… hello princess Di-di-anna! She picked me up, smiled at me, and graciously suffered my four-year old chit-chat as she brought me back upstairs before escaping to a more private setting. Forget ballet!
March 25th, 2013 | Posted in Featured Content,Global Health Corps,Hub Full-Length Features,misc | Read More »
By Global Health Corps Fellow
A friend recently sent me an article announcing the new field of impact evaluation for development. Five minutes later, another email pops up in my inbox: Evaluation is a top trend for 2013. Every week there are new magazine series, global conferences, books, and nonprofits devoted to measuring impact. Evaluation it is. As a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officer at the Infectious Diseases Institute and general evaluation enthusiast, I am both elated that impact evaluation seems to have made it onto the global development radar, and wary that it will just come and go like any other fad.
March 25th, 2013 | Posted in Aid & Development,Hub Full-Length Features,Hub Selects,misc | Read More »
By Global Health Corps Fellow
Imagine knowing a possible solution to some great challenge that you feel is so easy to implement. Would you keep that knowledge to yourself? We all have our passions in global health, and we all know that solutions are in grasp, if only we can overcome barriers such as lack of resources or poor health behaviors. Although we shouldn’t force our ideas on others, or intervene without invitation, I’m confident that the more we share our excitement and energy around those ideas, the more people will learn and consider, and the more we’ll attract resources.
March 25th, 2013 | Posted in Malnutrition,misc,Noncommunicable Disease | Read More »
By Global Health Corps Fellow
Earlier in the year, some of my colleagues and I began taking an online course on statistical analysis and epidemiology from edX. edX is an online learning platform that provides a plethora of courses from universities throughout the world on various topics, ranging from public health to computer science. I started the course, eager to practice the epidemiology I learned at graduate school and curious to see how other distance learning courses were structured and implemented to apply to my own work at the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI). After the 5th week of trying to download videos and working on assignments with choppy internet, I gave up. I looked back at the course, trying to figure out what the problem was.
March 2nd, 2013 | Posted in HIV/AIDS,Hub Full-Length Features,Hub Selects,misc,Technology | Read More »
By Global Health Corps Fellow
Today, many are inspired to serve in the health and social entrepreneurship sector such as the Global Health Corps. They do so due to various triggers and reasons. They convince themselves they need to serve because of reasons really known to themselves. They decide to go down that road because it is a calling, a necessity, a good thing to do, to explore various scenarios, or for personal gain.
January 22nd, 2013 | Posted in Global Health Corps | Read More »
By Global Health Corps Fellow
Post by: Lauren Marcell I’ll be honest- I didn’t think I had a smidgen of a chance of becoming a Global Health Corps fellow. I had two reactions upon reading the position descriptions and mission statement of GHC. 1) Unprecedented excitement. I knew this was the opportunity I had been looking for, the next step in my career and the chance to actually apply my college education and internship experience into the real world of public health – basically my dream.
January 21st, 2013 | Posted in Global Health Corps | Read More »
