Global health can seem like an amorphous concept to many. Questions quickly arise, like “how in the world can we give everyone a chance to be healthy?” and “what do I know about making sure people have good health?” To ensure a future for the poorest around the world, it is essential to instill a desire to help within the youth, so that this compassion will drive the actions of generations to come.
Luckily, college students all across the United States are taking the initiative. GlobeMed is a network of student-run nonprofits, composing 50 unique chapters at different universities. Each local unit is made up of college students from a wide variety of backgrounds who collectively form a partnership with a nonprofit organization, typically in a developing country. The chapters and their partners create a memorandum of understanding at the beginning of every school year, and in this contract lie both the students’ fundraising goal and the partner organization’s commitment to use these funds in the agreed manner. What makes this development model unique is the focus on the partnership itself—students do not come to developing countries with predetermined ideas of what needs to be done. GlobeMedders, as they are known, seek to help their partners with projects these organizations already want and need to accomplish. And at the end of every school year, a small group from each chapter travels to their partner organization for the month-long Grass Roots Onsite Work (GROW) trip, to improve relationships and to see firsthand how well the projects are progressing. By forging a partnership, GlobeMed chapters seek to help those who need it without attempting to paternalistically dictate solutions.
As long as a project meets basic requirements and is sustainable, a chapter can raise funds through nearly any means. Typical techniques include selling things like t-shirts and baked goods, running online fundraising campaigns, and events like date auctions. What makes each chapter so different from the others, however, is not just the specific makeup of each group and their respective fundraisers. It’s that every partnership has a unique project. Whether it be training community health workers, teaching adults and children about sexual health, or purchasing goats for villagers, each project is reflective of both the partner community’s needs and the university chapter’s specific capabilities.
Regional events throughout the year attract students to analyze and discuss these ideas en masse. Last weekend, GlobeMed at Penn State University held the 6th Annual Penn State Global Health Conference. Attendance for the keynote speaker, Dr. Nathan Wolfe—otherwise known as the Indiana Jones of virus hunting—reached over 150 on a Friday evening. This weekend, GlobeMed is hosting its annual Global Health Summit at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois. With honorary keynote speaker Leymah Gbowee, the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner who shares much of the credit for helping to bring an end to Liberia’s civil war, this year’s Summit is poised to continue its trend of inspiring hundreds of college students about the possibilities for global health equity.
– Jake Simon
Source: GlobeMed
Photo: PM Solutions Australia