Summer 2022 – Page 4 – Gillings Around the globe

The U.S. does not have universal safe sanitation, and we’re not doing enough about it

Posted on August 19, 2022August 12, 2022 by nayavill

Wrapping up the summer, I feel exhausted but fulfilled and excited to put the work of this summer into use in the future. These past months have been filled to the brim with various projects, the largest of which of course being my practicum project, but also my Haitian Creole (kreyòl) courses and my work with the Humanitarian Health Initiative.

There are a million and one things I would like to say about my practicum, and what I’ve found researching the barriers, risks, and social determinants related to poor sanitation in the United States. I would like to rail against the injustice that is a high-income country that allows millions of residents to rely on, for example, straight pipes, the system by which waste is directly conveyed, untreated, onto adjacent land or into nearby surface water (though, to be clear, the United States is not the only high-income country home to such methods.) I would want to highlight how many communities lack safe sanitation, a basic human right as delineated by the United Nations Resolution 64/292 (and common sense), because they are afraid of revealing their documentation status; how many communities of color still lack municipal water and sewer services due to under-bounding, the municipal annexation equivalent of red-lining, even though, in some cases, water and sewer pipes run through their neighborhoods to serve majority white neighborhoods.

But if I had to select a single thing (and, really, I don’t, because I’m currently writing a literature review on these barriers, risks, and social determinants!) it would be that there are indeed sanitation issues in the United States. In my readings, I came across a quote from a law review, that states: “indoor plumbing and sanitation are taken for granted in developed countries. … approximately 43 million Americans are in rural areas unconnected to public supply systems, but are nonetheless able to rely on clean water … and utilize on-site sewage facilities such as septic tanks for sanitation” (Hartley & Van Meter, 2011). This is an all-too-common misconception. Millions of Americans simply cannot “rely on clean water” and safe access to sanitation. In fact, Catherine Coleman Flowers, an eminent environmental justice advocate, calls the state of sanitation in areas of Alabama “the final monument of the Confederacy.” And lack of safe sanitation will become an increasingly pressing problem as climate change increases flood risk and incidence, leading to septic tank malfunction and increased spread of possible pathogens in flood waters. This is an issue that can no longer be ignored by various levels of government, by public health professionals, by our nation as a whole. I look forward to continuing this work as an Environmental Justice Graduate Research Fellow with the UNC Institute for the Environment this upcoming academic year.

Other than compiling this work, I’ve enjoyed my six weeks of Haitian Creole (kreyòl) classes through the Florida International University, where I had the amazing opportunity to take basic and intermediate kreyòl and a course on Haitian culture (kilti Ayisyen). I hope in the future to visit Haiti (Ayiti) and work with community-based organization working to address the environmental justice and sanitation issues wrought by centuries of colonization and US occupation. And, finally, I’ve loved getting to know some North Carolina lakes! See y’all in the fall, or, in kreyòl, n a wè talè!

Amy

Gratitude

Posted on August 18, 2022August 11, 2022 by nayavill

Garden display outside a restaurant on Cape Hatteras Island, NC

I feel so grateful to have spent the past several months working with the Sisonke Ntwana Project for my practicum. The project is a research intervention aimed at providing arts and play-based therapeutic interventions for pregnant and postpartum adolescents in Johannesburg. For me, this has been amazing, because it combines my interest in mental health, art therapy, and global populations, while also setting me up to learn qualitative research skills.

The study uses a developmental perspective, relying on psychological, biological, and social changes. With my background in social work, this is especially fascinating and important because it provides a critical perspective to look at how the life stage intersects with exposure to violence and mental health. Moreover, there is a systems approach to the study since the project examines how social stigma within healthcare settings affects mental health, barriers to reporting assault, transportation, and housing.

My Contribution:

Throughout my practicum, I was able to develop interview guides for the art interventionists, researchers, and the liaison who works with the project and as a nurse. The interview questions are aimed at gathering qualitative data about perspectives on the project, experiences, training, and other observations that are not typically captured during the session recordings. The goal of gathering this information is for evaluative purposes so the project can make sure its goals are appropriate and adjust if necessary.

After I developed the questions for each group or individual, I began the interview process! Scheduling these interviews was a bit hectic since we had to accommodate for the time difference (Johannesburg is 6 hours ahead of NC), but it was fascinating to hear the different perspectives and ideas people had about the project. There were many topics about community-wide social challenges, racial dynamics and how they can play out in-session, and ethical issues that can come up. Each of these topics shifted depending on the role the person had in the project, and I felt so lucky to be the person that was listening and interviewing folks about their experience. I also think people were appreciative to have a place to talk about their experiences.

Wrap-Up Reflection

Part of me is surprised that my practicum experience is already over, and the other part of me feels like it’s been much longer than 3 months. I genuinely feel like I’ve learned so much throughout my practicum experience, it’s funny to think about before it all started. Throughout my involvement in this project, I’ve worked on qualitative data analysis using Dedoose, cleaned mental health interview transcriptions, created a spreadsheet to organize data, created multiple interview guides and interviewed 6 team members, and much more. When I look at all the work I’ve done and the new things I’ve learned, it does feel like much longer than 3 months (but in a good way).

Key Takeaways

This practicum experience was so rich for me and there were a lot of key takeaways.

Some takeaways revolve around research practice and my interests. One interesting thing for me was how different, and more pressing, ethical challenges come up while practicing intervention-based research. Some of our MPH classes talk about ethics in research, but it is tricky to imagine the exact ethical scenario or challenge one might face until you’re in it, so this was a good way for me to see that better. This project also brought up to me how interesting I find interventions that use some sort of art or play-basis and how different modalities are appropriate for specific. For example, art and play therapy are especially useful for adolescents or folks with autism. I’m keen on exploring more about creative modalities and how they can be used for specific groups

Additionally, some of the most important key takeaways revolve around how I will approach my future job search. This practicum did make me realize how much I enjoy doing qualitative research and how I plan to look for a job than has that role. It also highlighted something that will be important for me and my future job search which is finding the right balance of community-based work and computer-based work. On top of each of these things, working on this project highlighted how pivotal it is to have a strong team and supervisor relationship. Lastly, this project team has such great rapport, and they work so well together which is something I think everyone that engages with it notices and it changed the dynamic of the work.

I am truly appreciative of all of the skills and takeaways I learned throughout my practicum and can’t wait to apply them in future work!

Lydia

Inter-Faith Food Shuttle – Raleigh, North Carolina

Posted on August 17, 2022August 9, 2022 by nayavill

It is hard to believe my summer with the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle in Raleigh, NC has wrapped up! I partook in a wealth of experiences during my practicum as I worked within the Food Shuttle’s fast-paced environment, which feeds, teaches, and grows our local communities.

Cooking Matter, Cucumber Scooter Activity – Advantageous – Chapel Hill, NC

As someone not originally from North Carolina, my time with the Food Shuttle was so valuable in becoming part of my community here. Throughout the summer, I traveled around our 7 service counties, doing everything from meeting and speaking with neighbors at food distributions, teaching nutrition classes, building curricula, and recovering and redistributing food to local partners. Whether I was climbing and crawling (with impeccable grace, might I add) over boxes in a semitruck trailer to make sure recovered spinach in the back got delivered to Raleigh’s Salvation Army, or racing around cucumber scooters on table tops with kiddos from Advantageous in Chapel Hill at my Cooking Matters class, each engagement helped me gain a deeper understanding of our local food system, the many people and local partners who keep it running, and the people who are served by it.

Each month during my internship, we had intern meetings where we discussed various topics related to food security. During our last intern meeting of the summer, we opened it up with the question, “What is one thing that surprised you most about your experience with the Food Shuttle?” Mine was a relatively simple response, but it is something I can’t stop thinking about. During my 3 months with the Food Shuttle, I was constantly shocked by how wide the network of people is that keeps our communities fed. Even when only looking at the Food Shuttle, I was in awe of the constant movement among my colleagues, our volunteers, and our local partners, and how that translated into food getting to neighbors. This then made me think what our food system could look like if more entities within it chose to function or were able to function with the same vigor and with food justice as a driving principle. Perhaps, we could build a food system that not only ensures people are fed without undue hardship, but one that also protects people from environmental harms, one that invests in communities rather than gentrifies them, and one that uses community knowledge and experiences to set their agenda rather than agendas set by outside forces.

Community Health Education Academy – Webinar Series – Healthy Pregnancies While Experiencing Food Insecurity – Podia.com – Designed by Sara Cathey

With this in mind, through various learning opportunities, I learned more about food apartheid, and how white supremacy culture in nutrition continues to yield oppression and erasure in our local food system. Too, it was eye-opening to dive into how the history of colonialism plays into how I conceptualize nutrition, as well as how it molds our local foodways. This was extremely impactful in the way I approached developing my curriculum for my 3-part webinar series, Healthy Pregnancies While Experiencing Food Insecurity. To that point, I also learned more about trauma-informed nutrition education, and attempted to integrate concepts from it into the my curriculum. Specifically, I focused on integrating concepts like power, choice and strengths individuals have when interacting with food; overall wellness as opposed to strict, numbers-based nutrition suggestions; opportunities for skills-building related to food and adaptations of these based on various needs; and providing information in a non-judgmental manner to reduce stress or anxiety surrounding food.

Community Health Education Academy – Webinar Series – Healthy Pregnancies While Experiencing Food Insecurity – Recipe Budget – Designed by Sara Cathey

Practically, this looked like designing my lessons with a similar pattern. Each session started with one or two pregnancy-safe stretches to promote mental and physical wellness. We then transitioned into lesson content, with Session 1 being about using community food resources like WIC and SNAP, Session 2 being about managing pregnancy symptoms and nutrient needs, and Session 3 being about food safety during pregnancy. After that general information was presented, we then applied that knowledge to a recipe activity where we looked at how we could design our meals to maximize monthly WIC and SNAP benefits and the nutrients on our plate. With that, I displayed a recipe and any adaptations that could be made to it and then broke down a budget looking at the overall cost, cost in WIC benefits, and cost in SNAP benefits if a person made that particular meal once a week for four weeks. With these lessons, it is my hope that pregnant neighbors experiencing food insecurity feel equipped, inspired, and in charge of their food, their bodies, and their wellbeing.

There are so many other things I could talk about, but if I did, I think my fingers would fall off from typing. So for now, I just want to say that I am so very grateful for my time with the Food Shuttle this summer, and for the opportunity to learn from and work with a group of people who are so keen on feeding our neighbors with justice as a leading principle. I also wanted to say a special thank you to my mentor, Kylee McCombs, for all of her guidance and insight during the development of my practicum products, as well as a big thank you to everyone else at the Food Shuttle! Y’all are absolutely awesome!

Ag Education – Garden Signs – Rana (left) Sara (right) – Camden Street Learning Garden – Raleigh, NC

Sara C.