Want to live out your values? Mind the gap!
My co-fellows and I are somehow entering the final quarter of work in our placement sites. Our predecessors all warned us that the year would fly by, and sure enough, it’s nearly vanished before our eyes. Having completed seven months of the fellowship, we now have a unique view of our past, present, and future. […]
Promotion of health through cultural leaders
For a long time there has been a war between culture and modern medicine. This has clocked way back especially in most African countries and led to misinformation and the loss of many lives. To date so many people have had a change in their beliefs. There are many cultural leaders who have come up […]
Band-Aid
I watched him for several minutes as he bent over, clapping his hands over his right knee. Wearing a blue and white shirt with brown shorts, the young boy seemed so frustrated with something. But what? Distracted and perplexed for several minutes, I finally peeked over to get a better look. There were flies buzzing […]
The importance of emotional health in the fight against HIV/AIDS
In the global health community, we often put psychosocial support on the back burner. We’re so focused on efforts with measurable outcomes—dispensing ARVs, building clinics, administering vaccinations—that we often fail to address the less tangible needs of our patients. The fact that they may be experiencing one of the most emotionally challenging periods of their […]
Forging a New Discipline
“Global Health is an attitude. It is about the universal nature of our human predicament. It is a statement about our commitment to health as a fundamental quality of liberty and equity.” – Richard Horton, Editor of The Lancet Whenever I mention my work overseas, I get met with skepticism nearly as often as curiosity. […]
Are We Making Any Difference?
On Dec 1st 2013, Mbarara town was coloured white and red; school uniforms, banners, red ribbons and T- shirts are all telling us how we are getting to Zero HIV new infections. They were the World AIDS Day National celebrations! These celebrations were held at the Bible Institute grounds in Nyamityobora ward, an area that […]
Global Health and Open Source
In the world of software, your best bet is open source software – usually – because, it comes free, has been developed by a community, and everyone working on it, depends on everyone else to review what they are doing to make it better. So you have heard of Open Source Operating Systems (Ubuntu, SuSE, […]
Young People Living with HIV/AIDS and Sexuality: What’s the deal?
Few things are more rejuvenating than working with young people and I am privileged to be doing just that. I work for Baylor College of Medicine Children’s Foundation in Uganda as an Advocacy and Communications Specialist. I have been at Baylor-Uganda for over six months and while much remains the same in terms of how […]
Back to School
How can we comprehend sustainability in a context where that word does not exist? How can we fashion contemporary architecture appropriate to people and place without modern construction materials? How can a school in the Congolese jungle teach its students and its entire community? These are the sorts of questions I have had the opportunity […]
Leap-frogging Development
“Let’s focus on the opportunities, not the challenges,” my co-worker offered. In a conversation about reaching health care workers through internet-based platforms and applications, this was a bold statement. How could you not consider the fact that many of the health care workers we were trying to reach in rural areas didn’t have electricity? Yet, […]