Category: 2024 Summer Blogs

Ethical Content Development in Tanzania with Nguzo Women and Youth Foundation

Posted on by Adriana Gaona

As I began the second half of my practicum in Tanzania, my focus shifted from finalizing the website as my first deliverable for Nguzo Women and Youth Foundation to content development.

The Director of Nguzo invited me to several events with a variety of Non-Governmental Organizations during the week leading up to International Day of the African Child. First, we went to Gabriela Rehabilitation Centre, where teams from local schools in the Hai District competed in the championship brackets in football, otherwise known as soccer in the United States. Although the occasion appeared to be sports-oriented, there was a strong component of celebrating community partnerships that support the process of establishing well-being and health education efforts across communities. The nonprofit leaders and local mothers (Mamas) invited me to play net ball with them, so I joined in despite not being able to understand any of the rules given in Swahili.

One of the most special moments was when I realized that my concern and care to be an ethical global health professional was received well by the community. On day one of my practicum, the Nguzo Women and Youth Foundation team gave me a nickname of “Manka,” which is a name from the Chagga tribes given to second-born children. After participating in events with local nonprofits, children, and their Mamas, they would all greet me with enthusiasm, saying “Manka!” and sometimes approaching for a hug. In these moments, I realized that a great measure of a community’s receptivity to the global health work you are doing is how they respond to your presence.

This day was a turning point in learning that global health work does not equate to being serious 100% of the time, as long as ethical choices are being made. People are smiling, so you might as well too. People are dancing, so you might as well too. Standing in a corner watching people at events is even more voyeuristic than joining in. If the community wants you there and you are doing intentionally ethical work, it is logical, permissible, and welcomed to join the fun and let memories be made, when invited.

Another event involved participating in a parade with children and a multitude of nonprofits and gathering for an assembly to celebrate International Day of the African Child. The Nguzo team asked me to capture content for marketing materials, which are essential for fundraising, partnership development, and recruitment of volunteers. On this occasion, I struggled to find a balance with ethical photography since so many people were involved and I was clearly one of very few people in the room who was visiting from another country. When cultural dances were performed by the children, I communicated with my preceptor to determine whether it was appropriate to record.

I returned to the office for the remainder of my practicum and developed videos for Nguzo’s social media based on the material gathered from the events. If you are interested in viewing them, the YouTube channel and Instagram accounts share the username of @Nguzo_WY_Foundation. I also worked with the Director to develop a set of interview questions for the team to answer for a clear description of Nguzo’s programming and communicate their desire for funding support to expand their movement. Piecing together this interview-based video was my second deliverable.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I focused on sustainability. I developed a maintenance guide for the website, reviewed key points with my preceptor, and recorded an explanation of several editing procedures for the website. I compiled the ideas and future tasks that we brainstormed together as a team for the organization and ensured that the community partners and Non-Governmental Organizations from the events received the photos.

I am grateful for the brief time I shared with Nguzo Women and Youth Foundation and the team has expressed they are certain that my work will have a lasting impact on the future outlook of the organization.

If you are interested in learning more about Nguzo Women and Youth Foundation, please visit nguzofoundation.org.

Thank you for reading!

Kelsey Cohn

Public Health in Paris

Posted on by Adriana Gaona

06/30/2024

Bonjour from Paris! My name is Caroline Polito and I am an MPH candidate in the nutrition concentration. I just finished the second week of my practicum at the Centre of Research in Epidemiology and Statistics (CRESS), a department of Inserm, which is the French national institute of health and medical research. CRESS is in a university hospital located in Villejuif, which is south of Paris but not far by metro.

My first week was challenging, but I have already learned a lot. I arrived in France on June 15 and started my practicum on June 17, so I was dealing with jet lag while also adjusting to speaking French every day and learning to navigate the city. Suffice it to say, I was exhausted after the first week but am excited for what lies ahead. My practicum work is focused on a nutritional epidemiology topic, which includes a research and intervention design component. First, I am analyzing data from an observational cohort study to determine if there is an association between the consumption of growing up milk (a fortified milk given to children after breastfeeding cessation) in the second year of life and neurodevelopment. I am using R for the statistical analyses, which is new to me and quite different from Stata, but I’m getting the hang of it slowly but surely. After these analyses, I will develop an evidence-based nutrition flyer/handout for families with young children about how to prevent iron deficiency (since iron is a very important nutrient for neurodevelopment).

The research team at CRESS has been very kind and welcoming, and I’m grateful for their willingness to help when I’m stuck with R coding. Believe it or not, one of the doctoral students here is American and did her undergrad at UNC! It’s a small world, and I’m glad to have a fellow Tar Heel to talk to. I have had interesting conversations with members of the research team about public health/healthcare in France compared to the United States, and I look forward to learning more about public health in France during my practicum, as well as French culture and language. I am also excited to explore Paris and other parts of France on the weekends!

-Caroline

Public health messaging about smoking cessation on the hospital campus.
Waling around Paris (1st arrondissement) on a cloudy afternoon.

A Summer Spent with Ugat Ng Kalusugan

Posted on by Adriana Gaona

Hello from the Philippines! My name is Dana Thompson, and I am currently completing my practicum with Roots of Health in Palawan, Philippines. I am working with the Youth Team here creating harm reduction modules for people living with HIV and updating their sexual health education modules. My trip began with about 45 hours of traveling from the time I left my apartment in Chapel Hill to when I arrived at my apartment in Puerto Princesa. I had never traveled this far and had never been out of the United States for so long, so there was much to adjust to. I settled into my apartment which sits above my host named Mitch and her family. After settling into my new home, I tried to keep my eyes open for as long as I could to adjust to the 12-hour time difference but eventually sleep won and I wound up falling asleep around 6 pm. Later, on my second day I took a ride on my first trike, which is a motorcycle with a cab attached to the side of it to meet my fellow interns for dinner. This would be the beginning of many firsts that I have already gotten to experience while here.

 

A picture I took at the top of a sunrise hike with the Roots of Health team on Philippines Independence Day

On my first day of work, I was excited to learn that the Youth Team at Roots of Health is the loudest team which meant that I would fit right in. One of my favorite activities that I did during my first week here was attend an outreach event with the Clinical Team where we traveled to Aplaya to disseminate contraceptive resources to women in the community. While we were there, we were talking to community advocates and the clinical director who had been working with members of the community for years. She told stories of the amazing successes of traveling to the community. Many of the women had been coming to the events for years and would only stop attending if they wanted to get pregnant or had started menopause. These outreach events are crucial to the community because these resources that would have been difficult for members of the community to access without Roots of Health traveling to them. She also detailed stories of women who were forced to stop accessing birth control when their husbands left for long fishing trips because their husbands were afraid that they would cheat. Stories like this are demonstrative of societal norms that do not view a person’s reproductive choices as their own.  

A picture taken at the entrance of the Underground River, one of the seven natural wonders of the world.

In addition to my work on the modules, I have also had the privilege of attending two sexual health education classes in Aborlan, the municipality just south of Puerto Princesa. I got to see firsthand how engaging and passionate the people I work with are during these trainings which result in stark improvements in understanding among participants from the pre and posttests. It made me so excited to continue working here and to begin developing my deliverables. There are some significant issues that surround sexual and reproductive health in the Philippines. One of these issues is that the Philippines has the fastest growing HIV epidemics in the Asia-Pacific region and most of the new cases are among people aged 15-35 and men who have sex with men. There are many factors contributing to this issue, some of them include stigma, lack of access to comprehensive HIV education, and limited access to reproductive health resources, including condoms. In addition to this issue, the Philippines has serious concerns surrounding teen pregnancy. The United Nations Population Fund states that about 9% of girls aged 15-19 have already had at least one child; this is also influenced by factors including limited access to reproductive health education and resources and stigma. I am so excited to continue learning from and working with this team while exploring this beautiful island. 

A picture taken during the last weekend of the Baragatan Festival, which celebrates the rich culture and history of Palawan

Dana