GlobeMed Quarterly

EditorsWilliam ChangGrace LeeCarol ParkBryana SchoenTiffany WongMariah Wood

Sponsored by Northwestern UniversityInternational Program Development and

the Global Health Studies DepartmentContributorsJoey GillMax HeppermanHeather PolonskyLaura RuchAllyson WestlingTiffany WongMariah Wood

2010 Newsletter staff

H.O.P.E Center Transitions Allyson WestlingExciting new events have recently unfolded at the H.O.P.E. Center. After a long, dedicated career as the Center’s head nurse, Margaret Asante has decided to retire. In February, Ms. Perfect Titiati assumed leadership as the new head nurse at the Center. She is currently in the process of transitioning into her new role. We thank Ms. Asante for her incredible inspiration, vision, and dedication to the partnership. She has played a pivotal role in forming the H.O.P.E. Center into the incredible institution that it is today. We are looking forward to getting to know Ms. Titiati better and to work closely with her over the com-ing years to advance the partnership between Ghana Health Service and GlobeMed. This is an exciting time in the partnership’s history; the transition has offered us a rare opportunity to reflect on where we’ve been and help design the best way to move forward. We enthusiastically welcome Ms. Titiati to the GlobeMed “family”!

We will be working closely with Ms. Titiati to

GlobeMed at Northwestern’s

Volume 5, Issue 2 | Winter 2011www.globemed.org/northwestern

continue to implement the Childhood Malnutrition and Adolescent Sexual health outreach programs to deepen their influence among the Center’s patient population. The Childhood Nutrition program is currently in phase IV as more community health workers will be trained in nutrition education and best farming and cooking practices. Their influence to the program is vital for its continued success and integra-tion into the community. Attention will also be spent on extending aspects of the program to new populations (i.e. pregnant women who can benefit from the program’s nutritional knowledge and male community members who can help play an important farming and harvest-ing role). Likewise, the Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Program will be expanded to include church and village members, in addition to its current focus on secondary schools. Peer educators from each category will continue to be trained and act as the program’s liaisons. We are confident that Ms. Titiati will approach these programs with clear objectives and creative outlook; we are excited to hear her goals for each program and work closely with her on their continued implementation.

ABOVE: GlobeMed members Reema Ghatnekar, Allyson Westling, Kathleen Leinweber, and Joey Gill standing with Margaret, the retiring head nurse of the H.O.P.E Center.

Local Partnership: Healthy Albany ParkHeather Polonsky

Commemorating the World Day of Social JusticeTiffany Wong Last year, GlobeMed launched its inaugural network-wide commemoration of the

World Day of Social Justice (WDSJ). This year, our 33 chapters across the country con-tinued this new tradition in engaging and innovative ways.

At Northwestern, the GlobeMed at NU used colorful helium-filled balloons to raise awareness about global inequalities. Chapter members pasted facts about health and economic disparities on balloons and handed them out at Norris student center. We also had a banner on which we had passersby write down what they believed to be a human right, as well as a WDSJ fundraising party for the HOPE Centre. We raised a total of $477 for the H.O.P.E. Centre at the fundraising party.

Additionally, the chapter helped organize a university-wide WDSJ Conference to bring together engagement groups from all over campus to raise awareness and increase collaboration. On February 20, over 15 social justice groups gathered to each present their organization’s mission and work. The conference also included a breakout session in which participants discussed main issues and best practices, as well as ways their groups could work together on campus programming. Conference participates include GlobeMed at NU, the Global Engagement Summit, the Center for Civic Engagement, LIFT Evanston, SEED, Northwestern University Conference on Human Rights, and INSPIRE Media. The conference was organized by the Northwestern Engagement Community, which will continue to provide support and collaboration opportunities for NU’s social justice community.

To see how our chapter and others responded to the World Day of Social Justice, please visit  http://www.imagine2030.org/wdsj.

A Northwest Side Chicago neighborhood, Albany Park is one of the most densely populated, diverse, and immi-grant-based neighborhoods in Chicago. According to the 2000 Census, more than 17% of Albany Park families were living with incomes below poverty level, the childhood poverty rate was 23%, and the median family income of the Albany Park area was 65% of the median family income for the Chicago metro area. The heart disease mor-tality rate in Albany Park is also recorded to be higher than that of most surrounding communities.

In light of these statistics, the Chicago Department of Public Health established Healthy Albany Park (HAP) in 2004. Comprised of more than forty local organizations and community residents within the Albany Park com-munity, HAP is a community-based coalition that strives to improve health outcomes for the most hard-to-reach populations by engaging community members in places where they gather, such as schools, child care centers, parks and playgrounds. HAP aims to raise awareness of the variety of available services and educate individuals about their rights as health consumers, providing information on preventing disease, depression, and abuse.

In an attempt to apply the lessons learned during our GlobalHealthU discussions and make an impact on the health of our Chicago neighbors, Northwestern’s GlobeMed chapter has begun to form a partnership with Healthy Albany Park. Through this partnership, GlobeMed members have had the opportunity to volunteer for some HAP’s and the Albany Park community’s health education and enhancement program.

GlobeMedders currently volunteer in HAP’s Tuesday Night Sports Night and Teen Reach programs. Started last spring by four Northwestern students, Tuesday Night Sports Night is educational and recreational health program for middle school students. The program includes mini-health lessons concerning important health topics (i.e. nutrition, hydration, physical activ-ity, etc.), followed by a fun game of soccer, to encourage healthy lifestyles. Also geared towards middle school students, Teen Reach is an after-school program that tutors and mentors neighbor-hood children, providing them with homework help, physical fitness activities, arts and crafts, games, and other fun programming.

Mountains Beyond Mountains author speaks at NUMariah Wood

On Feb. 10th, Tracy Kidder, the author of Mountains Beyond Mountains, came to speak at Northwestern about his book and the organization it spotlights, Partners in Health. As a GlobeMed member who hopes to improve the health of people all over the world, I found Kidder’s speech to be very thought-provoking. Seeing Kidder in person and hearing him talk about his experiences with Paul Farmer and Partners and Health made the story real. Farmer definitely is a larger-than-life kind of person, so

This Quarter’s Theme in GlobalHealthU: Mental HealthJoey Gill

This is what we tackled in this quarter’s GlobalHealthU. Who says global health can’t be fun?

Check out our blog to find the answers!globemedgrapevine.wordpress.com

Kidder’s talk was a reminder that the kind of work Farmer does can actually be done. Putting Farmer’s work into perspective, global health becomes not just something we read about but something but that really does exist and something toward which everyone can make a contribution. It is not a fairy-tale; it is real, and something to which we all can contribute. The thing that struck me the most about Kidder’s speech was along this encouraging vein: he challenged the students in the audience, say-ing that no matter what field one goes into or what one majors in, there is a way in every field to help lessen the blight of global sickness and poverty. Everyone is needed in this fight, from doctors to businessmen to anyone who wants to help. His essential message was: in anything you do, do it well and remember those less fortunate. It is an important one, and one that I and my fellow GlobeMed members hope to keep in mind in these next crucial years of our lives.

“Never underestimate the ability of a small group of committed individuals to change the world.” - Margaret Mead

“Indeed, they are the only ones who ever have.” - Jim Kim

Mountains Beyond Mountains, pg. 164

ACROSS DOWN

Building a generation of global health leadersSince our chapter’s founding, more than one hundred students have become members of GlobeMed at Northwestern. These members, along with hundreds of other students on the Northwestern campus, have participated in GlobeMed’s high-impact programming. In addition to providing students with the knowledge and skills to address issues of global health, these events have mobilized participants to join in the movement for global health equity.

How to donateWith support from GlobeMed at Northwestern, the H.O.P.E. Center in Ho, Ghana is excited to embark on phase V of their nutrition project, which aims to reduce the amount of malnutrition seen among children in the surrouding areas, especially children under the age of five. However, we need your help! Our projects would not be possible without help from you, our family and friends!

If you feel compelled to support us, there are two ways to donate: through online donations or through sending checks in the mail. Please see the at-tached letter for more information.

Thank you for all of your support! With your help, we can work together to fight for a brighter future.

ABOVE Former co-president Tiffany Wong walks with chil-dren from Ho, Ghana across a soccer field to where future crops of soybeans will grow.

Senior SpotlightMax Hepperman

During my undergraduate career at Northwestern, I have been lucky enough to develop my passion for global health both on campus in Evanston, as well as abroad in China and South Africa.  During my time in South Africa, we specifically studied the public health system in the rural province of KwaZulu-Natal.  We started by observing small rural clinics and eventually worked through the health system up to the large provincial hospitals. I will never forget our first day at the provincial hospital after a week of observing the lack of necessary support and equipment in the surrounding rural clinics. During a lunch break, one of the nurses took us behind the hospital and opened up a large storage shed that was just packed full of unused equipment. The nurse explained that all of the equipment came from donations that were simply not sustainable in their health system. The province didn’t have the training or funding necessary to cope with the equipment’s operating costs. Seeing these wasteful inefficiencies firsthand really made me ap-preciate GlobeMed’s model of working intimately with established grassroots organizations over the long-term. While most of my formal global health studies have been abroad, GlobeMed has served as the perfect medium for me to continue learning from my peers about important global health issues here in Evanston.  As co-chair of GlobalHealthU, I have learned just as much through the experi-ences of fellow GlobeMed members as I can ever hope to learn on my own. As a student working towards degrees in chemical and bio-medical engineering, I plan to take the lessons I’ve learned through GlobeMed and apply them to everything I do in my professional life.  

Victor Roy, a GlobeMed Co-Founder, current member of the Board of Directors, and first-year Feinberg medical student, paid a visit to NU’s Evanston campus on January 14th to speak at the Buffett Center for Comparative and International Studies.  In his talk, “A Social Strategy for Global Health Equity,” Victor broke down the history of tuberculosis, a treatable disease which kills nearly 2 million people per year, particularly addressing the challenge presented by the multi-drug resistant and extensive drug-resistant strains (MDR-TB and XDR-TB).  These forms of TB require second- and third-line drugs which, on average, cost $17,000 per person per year according to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.  Battling the disease has not been an easy task for agencies such as the World Health Organization and the World Bank, and progress in both prevention and treatment has been limited due to a lack of funding and persistent myths about the effectiveness of a treatment approach.

Victor spoke poignantly about the radical steps Partners in Health took in Peru in 1996 to prove to these larger organizations that out-breaks of MDR-TB can in fact be suspended, even in a resource-poor setting, with the sufficient motivation and medication. The program, a collaboration between PIH and their Peruvian affiliate, Socios En Salud, cured 85% of its patients.  “In the wake of PIH’s initiative, the WHO launched the DOTS-Plus program and organized the Green Light Commission that worked to persuade pharmaceutical compa-nies to reduce drug prices,” Victor said. DOTS-plus was an extension of WHO’s existing TB program, and it extended treatment of TB with first-line drugs to second- and third-line drugs.  Distressingly, only 25,000 of the 5 million infected with MDR-TB today are benefiting from this program, said Victor, and he cited an inadequate communi-ty-based approach as a major factor contributing to the situation.

Alumni Spotlight: Victor RoyLaura Ruch