A Face in the Numbers
Numbers surround us and overwhelm us on a daily basis. From trying to calculate the exchange rate for finances to reviewing attendance numbers of outreaches and interventions, I often forget that each number has a person or commodity attached to it. Every participation sheet for an outreach represents real people and their stories. In my […]
What motivates me in my work as a GHC fellow with FVS-AMADE?
To many of my friends and family, it may have seemed like a strange decision for me to leave a decent paying job in NYC to work for an entire year as a Global Health Corps fellow in Burundi, a small, French-speaking country in East Africa where running water and electricity are a luxury. At […]
The Importance of Play
A couple months into my fellowship, I realized that I felt far away from the people that I’m here to serve. Working at an organization that doesn’t take part in direct service, it was difficult to feel like I was contributing to the issues I saw every day in Boston. Volunteering gave me a great […]
Zambian Chief Tells of How His Chiefdom Attained ODF Status in a Single year
Chief Mukobela is one of the first chiefs to attain open defecation free status (ODF) for his chiefdom in Zambia. Having attained ODF status in 2013 after the community led total sanitation program (CLTS) was introduced in 2012, His Royal Highness has gone further and has begun working on a sustainable approach to maintain adequate […]
Change must be pursued: An invitation to the process
I invite you to join the discussion on change. “If you’re in a bad situation, don’t worry it’ll change. If you’re in a good situation, don’t worry it’ll change.” – John A. Simone, Sr. As broad and as wide as it sounds, we can still effectively discuss this everyday experience. Change is change. I am […]
Understanding Uganda’s MDG Progress
2015 may be just another calendar year, or maybe not, as it marks the final year for the implementation of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2015. The implementation years for the MDGs were 1990 to 2015. It is also a year away from 2016 – when Uganda holds its next general elections. I would like to […]
Throw Back to Uganda 1991
The HIV incidence in Uganda is on the rise. According to the Ugandan Ministry of Health, the prevalence of HIV has increased from 6.4% in 2005 to 7.3% as of September of last year. As seen in many other countries around the world, the young and single cohort is not the only segment driving the […]
Women’s empowerment: The key to social and economic development
There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women – Kofi Annan Centuries ago such topical discussions weren’t publicly viable as individual’s perceptions were highly perverted and mutually exclusive of today’s situational analysis. Many families, societies and nations at large have failed to embrace the contribution of women towards development. Economies […]
Tackling research myths within health focused non-profits
As a public health researcher striving to make a real change, I’ve been learning invaluable lessons from working in the non-profit sector. Research outcomes may be too technical to make a direct impact on a population, however non-profit programs also may not be as straightforward as they seem. To understand the mechanisms and processes of […]
All The Pieces Matter
This past holiday season, something amazing happened. HBO released a remastered version of its stellar show The Wire. IN HD. If you haven’t watched The Wire, I strongly encourage you to stop whatever it is you’re doing, set aside this blog post, and start binging posthaste. It’s been a genuine pleasure for me to revisit […]