In the News

What if the words you use every day in your business with clients do not translate perfectly into other languages?

This is one of the international business consulting challenges that Martha Reeves’ capstone course experienced this past semester as they worked with Global Brigades Panama. They held remote meetings with clients in rural locations and communicated solely through translators as they gained valuable lessons and experiences they will take with them into their future careers.

Oscar Ruben Velasquez, an alum from El Paso Community College, fundraised along with other students from New Mexico State University to travel to Guatemala through an organization called NMSU Global Brigades, a chapter designed to gather up students interested in medicine and send them to underdeveloped countries to experience medicine abroad.

“NMSU Global Brigades which allows students to travel to foreign countries and underdeveloped communities to provide medical care. Recently we went to Guatemala and provided medical care for the community members,” Velasquez said.

Biomedical Sciences major Bethlehem Dawit is on the pre-health track at Old Dominion University. This past summer she and 14 other ODU students traveled to Honduras as part of Global Medical Brigades, a non-profit on-campus organization whose mission is to provide primary health care services to small, under-resourced, rural communities with limited to no access to medical care. Dawit serves as president of ODU’s chapter.

University of Florida pre-med student Michael Saba will never forget the smile shot his way by a little boy in Panama during his time there with Global Medical Brigades. Saba is one of the 83,000-plus students from 500-plus schools involved in Global Brigades, the largest student-funded humanitarian organization in the world, according to a recent press release.

University of Florida pre-med student Michael Saba will never forget that smile. The biology major was not on a first date, at a fraternity party or in a Gainesville bar, he was in Panama with Global Medical Brigades.

“We were in a remote area of the Darien region and hundreds of patients lined up to see the doctors and dentists we were shadowing,” Saba, a senior from Tampa, recalled. “Most days, we took vitals, helped with triage or screened patients.”

On that morning, Saba was helping dentists administer fluoride treatments to patients in the dental clinic. “There was this little boy – eight maybe nine years old,” Saba recalled. “At first, he was extremely nervous but after he received the fluoride treatment that completely changed.”

Traveling to Tecpan, Guatemala with the MSU chapter of Global Brigades, was another moment of revelation that solidified my decision to pursue a career in medicine. The purpose of the trip was to work with a local community to provide support and teachings designed to empower people in need. Giving back to others is at the heart of what bleeding green is all about.

To teach the basics of commercial banking — and to instill some idealism in the next generation of lenders — one U.S. university is making Central American microfinance a part of its curriculum.

Marquette University’s commercial banking program is partnering with a microfinance organization that works with banking cooperatives in Panama, Honduras and Nicaragua.

Newly minted Eskala has an ambitious mission: to reimagine microfinance. A recent spin-off from nonprofit Global Brigades, the startup is focusing on what Steve Atamian, Eskala’s president and Global Brigades’ chief strategy officer, calls “micro- equity,” which, as the term suggests, is all about taking equity positions in, rather than making loans to, ventures in low-income communities.

Global Brigades, the largest student-funded humanitarian organization that was started by Marquette University students in 2003, has launched a spinoff, Eskala, a microfinance company focused on breaking the cycle of poverty through banking.

Global Brigades has over 600 university chapters in the U.S., Canada and Europe. There is no official headquarters for either Global Brigades or Eskala as team members work remotely though there are offices in countries that the nonprofit serves.

Students at Dana Hills High School Health and Medical Occupational Academy were virtually transported to rural communities in Honduras, Ghana and Greece as they participated in a virtual, experiential-learning program and provided assistance to areas in need.

Global Brigades is an international student-funded organization that is dedicated to empowering under-resourced communities through the deployment of volunteers who work to establish equal access to health care, capital and clean water. Traditionally, the humanitarian nonprofit would send groups of volunteers abroad, but as international travel came to a halt due to the COVID-19 health crisis, Global Brigades shifted its program to a virtual format.