Why the Ebola outbreak encourages me
During my first quarter as a Global Health Corps fellow, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has taken the conversation by storm all over the world. Because of this discussion, I believe it is the first time that my Facebook feed has become as intrigued by the topic of global health as I am. From […]
Finding Freedom for Adolescents
In less than two months Zambia will host the ARSH 2014 Adolescents symposium with the theme ‘A Time to Act’. The coming of this event got me thinking about a story I was documenting concerning an HIV positive youth. The youth was born HIV positive and hence had to live with the stigma associated with […]
From Marketing to Public Health
People always ask me how someone with a Marketing degree ended up into Public Health, and I say its by the grace of God. A year before graduating with my degree from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln I sat and thought about what I was going to do after graduation. After being in the […]
Malawi On Track
As the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is drawing closer, countries are working to prepare national reports that highlight their achievements and substantiate their failures. Malawi is on track to achieve MDG 5, which aims to reduce maternal mortality rate. Malawi, like many other low income countries in Africa, has a high rate […]
How Much is a Picture Worth?
My second day on the job at FVS-AMADE Burundi I was invited to observe a huge network meeting for the leaders of the organization’s solidarity groups. As a communications and fundraising fellow, I knew that this was a great opportunity to take pictures of our beneficiaries in action. Camera in hand, I couldn’t help but […]
Advocacy in the Time of Ebola
The threat of Ebola is real and spiraling out of control. The death toll and rates of infection are taking the lives of many, both young and old – the lives of people who could very well be strangers, but who were also our neighbors, neighbors who were our friends, friends who were loved ones, […]
Development by the People, for the People, with the People
So many times development has been imposed on people. Development policies and projects have been decided and designed in boardrooms in far away countries by professionals that neither understand the people nor their circumstances. They do not speak their languages, neither are they affected by their problems, nor have they, in their entire lives, even […]
The Importance of Meta Monitoring
“She can’t write, so we skipped the signature. That’s OK, right?” Wrong. When you’re interviewing a patient and navigating the complex world of rural informed consent: very, very wrong. As a project coordinator with Population Media Center in Burundi, one of my most rewarding experiences so far this year was had over the course of […]
Elbow Grease to Make Millions
I remember my Global Health Corps’ training at Yale University; I remember my excitement to finally be able to combine humanitarian work, global health and writing. And I remember, also, the many times I waited for my uncle to pick me up from school; I was fifteen and across the street, facing the bus stop, […]
The Dancing Cog
I think of myself as a small cog in the machine in the world of global health. But sometimes, especially when the complacency of being but a speck in the ocean settles in, the dire need of the work you do hits you and you are overwhelmed by how little, yet how much you can […]