Category: Michelle

As I wrap up the final weeks of my practicum with the Kenan Foundation Asia, I’ve also been reflecting on my time in Thailand and lessons I’ve learned from living in Bangkok.

My experience working with Kenan has taught me a lot about the unexpected challenges that public health workers face and how finding solutions for them isn’t always clear-cut. For example, during one weekend, my team visited one of the Burmese migrant communities living in Thailand (I was unfortunately out with COVID and devastated to have not been able to go) to get to know them and discuss potential sexual and reproductive health (SRH) interventions. The original plan had been to introduce SRH concepts through pamphlets or workshops, but upon meeting with the community, my team found out that some of the members were illiterate. Literacy was something we had never considered to be a potential challenge, and we had to modify some of the ideas we had to include activities that didn’t require literacy.

One of my deliverables was to write a recommendations report for how Kenan could communicate and disseminate SRH concepts and materials to the migrant and factory worker communities. After my team shared their experience from visiting the migrant community, I had to change some of my recommendations to be more equitable for all members of each community. One method I found while researching SRH education activities was an exercise called body-mapping, which consisted of participants each using a life-sized body diagram to label the anatomical body parts used in reproduction and sexual activities and answering questions pertaining to their beliefs and knowledge in SRH topics. This activity could be performed by the literate members writing down the labels and answers to the questions and illiterate members using an interpreter or discussion facilitator to explain their reasoning. I found body-mapping to be an interesting and unique approach to introducing communities to SRH topics because it allows public health practitioners to gain insight on the communities’ initial beliefs and potential misconceptions about SRH.

The deliverable that I am currently finishing is the creation of nutrition education modules for people across all life stages living in Thailand. I’ve included topics such as pregnancy nutrition, postpartum nutrition, infant nutrition, and child/adolescent nutrition. I first had to do research on what kinds of nutritional challenges Thailand was facing, which I found to be really interesting comparing Thailand to the U.S. and seeing how different food policies impact certain areas of nutritional health. For example, many of the packaged foods in Thailand do not have comprehensive nutritional labeling and often only provide information on the entire package rather than serving size. Thailand, along with other low and middle-income countries, is also currently experiencing a concept called the “double burden of malnutrition”, which occurs when there is a coexistence of undernutrition (stunting and wasting) and overnutrition (overweight/obesity). These issues all contribute to poor nutritional status, especially in children and pregnant people. Using the information I found from my research, I was able to tailor the modules to address specific nutrition concerns for people living in Thailand.

Through my practicum experience with the Kenan Foundation Asia, I began to truly enjoy research in nutrition policy and nutrition education dissemination. As an MPH student with a concentration in Nutrition, I am confident that the concepts I’ve learned while working on my deliverables will allow me to succeed in my future career in public health nutrition. I am particularly excited to delve deeper into nutrition policy in my Nutrition Policy class (NUTR 805) this fall semester.

Overall, my experience living and working in Bangkok has been extremely positive, and I’m immensely grateful for the opportunity and resources that helped bring me here. Bangkok is a city that is one-of-a-kind, with its diverse population, abundant street food options, and rich history. The people living here are exceptionally warm and will go out of their way to make you feel comfortable and welcomed. As I transition back to living in Carrboro, my heart will always have a soft spot for Thailand and the wonderful memories I made in Bangkok.

-Michelle Lee

About Me

Hello everyone! I’m Michelle, and I am a second-year MPH student in the Nutrition concentration. I’m originally from Houston and completed my B.S. in Nutrition with minors in Public Health and French in 2020 at Texas A&M University. Afterwards, I took a gap year in Dunkirk, France to work with a local NGO that provides aid to displaced people and refugees in northern France. Some of my public health interests include food insecurity, migrant health, and eating disorder treatment across minority populations.

About the Smart Family Life Planning in Action Project

This summer, I am doing my practicum with the Kenan Asia Foundation, an organization based in Bangkok, Thailand that provides educational programming and capacity building to marginalized communities across Thailand and Vietnam. The Smart Family Life Planning in Action project’s goals are to build local capacities for young women, work on high-level policies to support smart family life planning, and decrease the number of unplanned pregnancies in female factory employees and migrant workers. Given my interest and experience in working with refugee and migrant populations, this practicum seemed like the perfect opportunity to learn more about how different countries address concerns from their immigrant communities and the health disparities that exist among lower-income residents.

In Thailand, approximately 51% of pregnancies are unplanned, many due to the lack of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education, stigma and attitudes toward SRH, and shortages in SRH services. The Kenan Foundation Asia hopes that through train-the-trainer programs, mobile outreach, and SRH education, young women in Thailand will be able to make more informed decisions about their future. One aspect that drew my attention to this project was how it wasn’t only focused on women who wanted children in the future, but rather women’s health as a whole. Meeting an individual where they’re at is crucial in community health work, and I admire how Kenan included all women in their intervention design.

As the project is still in its early stages, I am currently doing research on international best practices for capacity building in migrant and factory worker communities and mobile outreach and will later summarize my findings in a paper that includes recommendations on how we can reach our expected outcomes. I’ve really enjoyed my work so far; it’s interesting to learn about which methods the communities respond to well and which ones they don’t. Although having to find out how to apply these findings to the context of this project is a little daunting, I welcome the challenge and am eager to present them to my team.

The other component of my practicum is developing nutrition curriculum for the migrant women and female factory employees. I’m particularly excited to use what I’ve learned in my Nutrition Counseling, Communication, and Culture class I took my first semester at Gillings to create content that is culturally relevant and appropriate.

Work and Life in Bangkok

Although I’ve visited Thailand before with my family, working here in Bangkok has a completely different feel. The culture at Kenan is extremely welcoming, inclusive, and laid-back. My coworkers are passionate about their work, and I’ve had great conversations with them about life in Thailand and the U.S. Our high-rise office building is only steps away from a huge tented food hall that thrives off us employees grabbing meals to-go. Everyone works a hybrid-remote schedule, so I spend my days working from Bangkok’s endless number of coffeeshops when I’m not in office.

Living in Bangkok is synonymous with living in constant, insufferable heat. While I wouldn’t think twice about going on a 15-minute walk in Chapel Hill, the moment I step outside here, my sweat glands go into overdrive. It’s no wonder that, along with its intricate and beautiful temples, Bangkok also is famous for its multistory air-conditioned malls that serve as the city’s social and entertainment hubs. However, getting to live in the midst of Bangkok’s vibrancy and diversity makes enduring the weather well worth it. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about life in Thailand, it’s that unless you’ve slurped down a big steaming bowl of noodle soup while sitting in a makeshift restaurant on the side of the road in 95-degree heat, you haven’t truly experienced living here.

– Michelle