From Without to Within: Local Solutions for Ending AIDS by 2030
There is bad aid and there is good aid. The bad aid is that one which creates dependencies, but good aid is that which is targeted to create capacities in people so that they are able to live on their own activities – Paul Kagame It has been a short three months. GHC-wise, I have […]
Stage fright, anyone?
The prospect of writing a blog is daunting. Blogs are for opinionated people. If I am going to blog, I would like to have something worthwhile to say. I, for one, find it annoying to come away from reading a piece of writing, feeling like I have just wasted seven and a half precious minutes […]
To Them We Can Not Answer Tomorrow
After attending a campaign that was conducted by Gardens for Health International (GHI) to enroll women in the program, women were informed by local leaders to bring their children under the age of 5 to come to the nearest local authority office called “akagari.” We were supposed to start measuring the weight and the height […]
Finding the Brightspots
As we round out the first quarter of our fellowship year I have spent a great deal of time reflecting on the last few months, both through guided discussion and internal “soul searching”. A consistent theme in all of our GHC sessions is this idea of finding the “bright spots”, or latching ourselves to things […]
The Fight Against NCDs Could Benefit from an Integrated Approach
A patient walks into a general hospital on Monday for his/her hypertension review, spends close to an hour in the waiting area, has his file retrieved, is seen by a triage nurse and then proceeds to see a doctor after waiting for about an hour in the queue. After the consultation by a clinician/physician, proceeds […]
Hidden Hunger in a Theoretical Land of Plenty
Eat a balanced diet! Growing up, and indeed, well into adolescence and adulthood, this has been a message I’ve heard from a number of angles (my mother, cartoon characters, and official guidelines, to name but a few). While great advice, theoretically, it can be hard, practically, to know exactly what this means. Even harder still […]
Living In a Messy House
Did I know that I could attain a GHC placement? No. Did I think I deserved it? No. Did I feel discontent about my village, my town, my city, my country, my Africa and my world? Yes. Who was I? How did I count? How did I mean something to the world and how could […]
What does it take: From a village to a leader
“I’ll spread my wings and I’ll learn how to fly, I’ll do what it takes, until I touch the sky, I’ll make a wish, take a chance, make a change, and breakaway” To some people this song by Kelly Clarkson is just a song, maybe because of its nice melody and the voice of the […]
Who is your Why?
During our two weeks of GHC training at Yale, one of the sessions which was particularly compelling for me was called ‘Considering Collective Action’ during which we watched a TED talk by Simon Sinek about “How great leaders inspire action.” You can watch it here. There are many great points to take home, however the […]