A new year for Globemed at NU Building a generation of global health leaders:

- Since our chapter's founding,

more than one hundred students

have become members of Globe-

Med at Northwestern. These

members, along with hundreds of

other students on the Northwest-

ern campus, have participated in

GlobeMed's high-impact program-

ming. In addition to providing

students with the knowledge and

skills to address issues of global

health, these events have mobi-

lized participants to join in the

movement for global health equi-

ty.

GlobeMed Quarterly

Northwestern University

Volume 4, Issue 1 Fall 2009 www.globemed.org/northwestern

Contributors

Jonathan Shaffer

Tiffany Wong

Lalith Polepeddi

Newsletter Staff

Editors

Carol Park

Lily Ryzhkova

Dandan Liu

Aimee Peng

Reflections on the summer, fall quarter 2009

Sponsored by the Northwestern

International Program Develop-

ment and Global Health Depart-

ment

How to Donate With support from Globe-

Med, the H.O.P.E Center in

Ho, Ghana is currently work-

ing on phase IV of their nutri-

tion project, which aims to re-

duce the amount of malnutri-

tion seen among children in the

surrounding areas, especially

in 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 dona-

tions or through sending

checks in the mail. Please see

the attached letter for more

information.

Thank you for all your sup-

port! With your help, we can

work together to fight for a

brighter future.

This past summer, the co-presidents of GlobeMed at NU—Lalith Polepeddi

and Tiffany Wong— visited the H.O.P.E. Center, our partnership organization in

Ho, Ghana. The center, which opened in April 2007, currently serves around 4,000

people in eight villages with child welfare clinics, childhood immunizations, mater-

nal health classes, insecticide-treated bed net distribution, and family planning

services.

Also, GlobeMed members were busy raising funds and awareness through

events such as the Global Marketplace and Health Week, along with utilizing so-

cial media in America’s Giving Challenge and initiating GlobeMed’s Imagine 2030

online campaign. We were able to accomplish so much this quarter thanks to all of

your support and generous donations.

Although we had a great start to this year, we are excited for 2010 and all the

wonderful projects we can achieve through your support!

Head nurse Margaret Asante stands outside the H.O.P.E.Centre as another day begins.

The newest feature of the clinic, a pathology lab, was built to accommodate the needs of

the Centre for diagnostic testing.

GlobeMed Quarterly Page 2

Imagine the world in the year 2030. Go ahead, think about it. Is it different than the world we live in today? Do millions of people still die from preventable and treatable diseases? Do poor women still over-whelmingly die in childbirth? Are AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria still global scourges that disproportionately affect those living in poverty? Are global health leaders still squabbling over crumbs when they should be looking to secure the resources necessary to truly achieve global health equity? My vision is quite different. I see a world where all people have the opportunity to live a healthy and full life; where life expectancy is not determined by locale of birth, gender, or race. Then, the central question: How do we get from here, to there? Who will be shaping this better, more just world? The only logical answer that I can think of is: The students and the young people of today. We need an entire generation of student leaders who think radically and optimistically about the world that they are a part of. We need student lead-ers who think pragmatically about how they can contribute to this movement over the course of their lives. With more than 400 students at 19 universities, GlobeMed is working to build this movement for global health equity on college campuses now. Students have raised more than $150,000 to support 21 public health projects at grassroots organizations around the world. Nearly 50 GlobeMed students have traveled to their partner organizations and worked alongside the grassroots leaders to both strengthen the partnership and contribute to their efforts on the ground. What’s more, greater than 90% of the GlobeMed students surveyed this year reported that they intend to stay involved in global health no matter their career choice. Yet, significant gaps exist for stu- (Continued on page 4) (Continued from page 2)

The world in 2030,

and the vital role

of student leaders

Welcome to Ghana!

Jon Shaffer is the

executive director of

GlobeMed.

(jonathanshaffer2007

@u.northwestern.edu)

By: Tiffany Wong

Imagine showing up in a new

country halfway across the world to

stay with a host you’ve only met

through e-mail. After a grueling 19-

hour ride, you get to the airport, shake

hands, and get into an old, rickety Jeep

to start the two-hour ride to the coun-

tryside. Everything is going well until

it starts to rain. Then the car begins to

slow, groaning down the muddy road as

the sky begins to darken. And by the

time the battery dies, it is nightfall and

you are stranded on a bumpy dirt road,

with not one car in sight. You can’t

help but laugh and think to yourself,

Welcome to Ghana.

As the incoming co-presidents

of GlobeMed at Northwestern, Lalith

and I spent four weeks this summer in

rural Ghana visiting our partner, the

H.O.P.E. Centre, a primary health clin-

ic that serves a population of roughly

4,000. Having spent two years raising

both funds and awareness to support

the Center, I was eager to see the clinic

we worked to build and the projects

that we continue to fund. We recently

expanded clinic services by building a

pathology lab to test for diseases such

as malaria and HIV. Additionally, we

support a child nutrition project that

uses locally grown soybean plants to

fortify the diets of malnourished chil-

dren, and, through our adolescent sexu-

al health resource center, train stu-

dents to become peer educators and

raise sexual health awareness in

schools.

Most of our work focused on

developing the next phase of the child

nutrition program. By working with

the nurses at the Center and with local

community leaders, we were able to

identify gaps in nutrition knowledge.

Mothers understood that protein was

essential for the diet, but were not im-

plementing the soybean supplements

provided by the clinic effectively. We

developed a training manual and new

peer education program for mothers to

monitor the growth of children in their

villages enrolled in the nutrition pro-

gram. We launched the program by

selecting two mothers in the neighbor-

ing village of Ando, who will report

back to the nurses at the H.O.P.E. Cen-

ter monthly. This peer education pro-

gram also helps to lighten the burden

of the nurses as the clinic is currently

understaffed. As we’ve seen during

monthly weigh-ins at the Center, local

mothers seem to be taking the initia-

tive seriously and are invested in the

success of this project.

To return to the opening sto-

ry, it turned out to be quite the warm

welcome to Ghana—within an hour, a

kind taxi driver not only offered to help

us, but turned around with his passen-

gers to borrow a car battery from some-

one he knew down the road, offering to

lead the way until we got home. I en-

joyed my trip thereafter thoroughly,

and am proud to be working with the

H.O.P.E. Center as our partner clinic.

Tiffany Wong spends time with chil-

dren during a training session about

the soybean nutrition project.

Pictures from Ho, Ghana

Tiffany Wong and Lalith Polepeddi help

plant soybeans with a machete.

Page 3 Volume 4, Issue 1

Promoting health equity

through social media 3D model offers virtual experience of clinic

By: Lalith Polepeddi

By: Dandan Liu This summer I had the

opportunity to visit our partner in

Ghana, the Health Outreach and

Peer Education (H.O.P.E.) Centre. It

was humbling to physically be at the

same clinic at which several Globe-

Medders before me had worked, and

for which even more GlobeMedders

campaign to support throughout the

year.

GlobeMed’s partnership

with the H.O.P.E. Centre is unique

since our fundraising efforts have

directly expanded its facilities and

the services offered. Last year, we

supported the development of a di-

agnostic laboratory, which is now

capable of testing blood for parasites

common to the region.

However, the nature of our

global partnership is also inherently

limited in its accessibility. We re-

ceive updates from the Centre

through email, which are useful to

provide rationale for fundraising,

but they do not offer the visual con-

text or the sense of immediacy that

being physically present does. To

this end, I constructed a 3D model of

the H.O.P.E. Centre.

During my first two weeks,

I took dimensions of the rooms and

property of the Centre, which I then

translated into a modeling software

to develop the 3D model. The final

product, a virtual clinic, was upload-

ed to Google Earth and situated on

the Centre’s actual geographic coor-

dinates. Using this tool, Globe-

Medders can situate themselves at

the Centre and virtually observe

how their fundraising efforts at

Northwestern have directly expand-

ed the infrastructure and services at

the Centre. As part of our movement

for health equity, you can also visit

the Centre remotely and virtually

enter and negotiate the clinic as it

appears in actuality. You can heck it

o u t o n l i n e a t

http://virtualclinicsite.org.

So what comes next? We

are fortunate to have a talented and

motivated team at Northwestern

who have already made a tremen-

dous impact on our projects in Gha-

na. We raised over $2,500 this quar-

ter by hosting a global marketplace

and by participating in an online

donation contest hosted by Face-

book. These funds will directly sup-

port our work at the H.O.P.E. Cen-

tre, specifically a program to remedy

malnutrition in children under five

years of age. I’m excited to continue

our work in 2010 as we advance the

movement for health equity togeth-

er.

“You may say I’m a dreamer.

But I’m not the only one.

I hope someday you’ll join us.

And the world will live as one.”

John Lennon Although more than thirty

years have passed since the world-

debut of John Legend’s iconic song

―Imagine,‖ it seems as if its message

has completely stood the test of time,

surpassing the realm of popular culture

and transforming into a source of inspi-

ration for all generations all across the

world. This past October, through

the synergized, collaborative, and

grassroots efforts of GlobeMed’s Imag-

ine 2030 campaign, Lennon’s vision is

one step further transformed into reali-

ty with regards to the fight for global

health equity.

Based on the technological

prevalence of today, GlobeMed incorpo-

rated its Imagine 2030 campaign with

America’s Giving Challenge, an online-

based competition where organizations

from all around the world competed for

a $50,000 grand prize by rallying in the

most number of donors. Daily $1,000

prizes were also awarded. Through

strategic teamwork such as designated

storm sessions in which members

spread the word to family, friends, and

even Bollywood movie stars via face-

book, twitter, and email, GlobeMed was

able to capture a top-ten spot, raising

approximately $26,000 with 2,432

members. That’s $1,500 per chapter to

support projects that empower commu-

nities with healthcare access! For

Northwestern’s chapter, the money will

go to support the ongoing services and

projects of the H.O.P.E. Center.

So just imagine by 2030 a

world without health disparities, where

all people, regardless of race, gender,

and status will all have equal access to

cures and treatment, and where ―the

world will live as one.‖

Counterclockwise from the picture on

the left: (1) Tiffany Wong walks to-

ward a soybean farm with children

from the community. (2) Lalith

Polepeddi enjoys an afternoon snack

of peanuts with one of the children. (3)

Lalith Polepeddi learns firsthand

about planting and harvesting in a

community soybean farm.

Global Marketplace: Lucky finds on an

unlucky day - Friday November 13, 2009 By: Aimee Peng

The Global Marketplace was held in the Norris Northwestern Room. Students shopped for

items such as clothes, jewelry and shoes with upbeat music playing in the background.

Friday the 13th turned out to be

rather lucky for some savvy shoppers.

On November 13, GlobeMed

members successfully transformed the

Norris Center’s Northwestern Room into

a Global Marketplace, a rummage sale-

style fundraiser benefiting the H.O.P.E.

Center in Ho, Ghana.

Led by executive board mem-

bers Katie Smiley and Alyson Weiner,

GlobeMed members collected donations

of gently used clothes, shoes, accessories,

furniture and electronics from North-

western students to be sold at the Global

Marketplace.

Priced between 50 cents and

five dollars and bearing labels like An-

thropologie, Forever 21, Lacoste and

Marc Jacobs, the items sold at the Mar-

ketplace were both affordable and styl-

ish. The sale was not only for the style-

conscious on a budget, however – with

one table full of electronics and others

dedicated to room décor and other mis-

cellaneous items, there was something

available for everyone.

In addition, raffle tickets were

sold for a variety of prizes, which includ-

ed Chipotle gift cards and a new iPod

shuffle.

To promote this event – and to

educate fellow students about Globe-

Med’s cause – members covered the cam-

pus with flyers, handed out coupons and

launched an online publicity campaign

via Facebook. In addition, the Global

Marketplace was featured by Northwest-

ern University’s premier style magazine,

Stitch, on its fashion blog. After being

open to the public for only five hours, the

Global Marketplace raised a total of

$1,221.39 for the H.O.P.E. Center, which

will benefit its child nutrition program.

Leftover items were donated to charity.

dents who want to engage in this move-ment at universities without GlobeMed chapters. For this reason, we believe that now is GlobeMed’s opportunity to rapid-ly expand to many more campuses and communities around the world. Over the next two years, we plan to grow from 19 to 60 chapters at universities across the nation. By seizing this opportunity to grow rapidly now, we can envision a world where tens of thousands of Globe-Med alumni are devoting their lives to global health and social justice. These students, now professionals, will work in the private, public, and NGO sectors across the globe to improve the health of the impoverished. If we are successful, this generation of global health leaders will help shape a world where all people have the opportunity to live a healthy life. Join with us in this movement: www.imagine2030.org. Let’s imagine a world in 2030 that we can be proud of: one that is more just, sustainable, and equitable.

The world in 2030,

and the vital role

of student leaders

The Health Week Collaborative: November 16-20, 2009

Mid-November marked the next

phase of the globalhealthu curricu-

lum—one involving an intimate exam-

ination of the evolving role gender

plays in global health. The week of

November 16-20 coincided with Am-

nesty International’s Stop Violence

Against Women week, and in honor of

the focus, GlobeMed furthered the

attention to gender at the university

level by partnering with NCDC

(Northwestern Community Develop-

ment Corp) and EWH (Engineering

World Health) to present Health

Week. During the week, each student

group sponsored a health-related

event ranging from community in-

volvement to global engagement.

NCDC organized a thoughtful

discussion with representatives from

La Rabida Children’s Hospital and

Rainbow Hospice, while EWH hosted

By: Lily Ryzhkova a student panel, offering rich dialogue

about global health opportunities

abroad. GlobeMed’s co-President Lalith

Polepeddi served on the panel, contrib-

uting the GlobeMed model and its chal-

lenges and triumphs to the conversation.

Health Week culminated with Globe-

Med’s screening of ―A Powerful Noise,‖ a

documentary featuring stories of three

different women who, despite unfortu-

nate circumstances, empower them-

selves and their respective communities

through creative undertakings. The film

includes Hanh, an HIV-positive woman

living in Vietnam, who upon discovering

her status founds an organization called

Immortal Flower to provide support and

guidance for others afflicted with

HIV/AIDS. The second story is that of

Madame Urbain, who, witnessing the

abuse and neglect of women, provides

learning and job opportunities through

her organization called APAF. The third

story follows Nada, a woman recovering

from the devastation of the Bosnian War,

who organizes a cooperative to restore

positive ethnic relations and provide

employment for her community. The

magnetic narratives nicely parallel the

topics that were discussed during Health

Week from local involvement to gender

dynamics placing into a realistic context

lessons in global health.

After screening ―A Powerful Noise‖, glob-

alhealthu leaders Gabriela Escobar and

Sana Rahim led a discussion on the lives of

the different women and the issues they