In the News

Learn how students from Arcadia’s Physician Assistant program are impacted by their travels to Nicaragua with Global Brigades to provide medical and public health outreach in rural regions of the country.

With a passion for change, Global Brigades @ Marshall strives to provide business consulting and strategic investment to support under resourced microenterprises in Panama, Ghana, and Honduras. Selected students have the opportunity to participate in a week-long service learning experience and they work with a local micro-enterprise to improve the success and sustainability of the business. This includes living in the rural community for a week, learning about the business, and using business skills to help with marketing, operations, finance, and accounting. Brigade members will work directly with micro-enterprise members, prepare and present workshops, and spend a few days exploring nearby metropolitan areas

For most of us, travel provides us with a chance to relax and a firsthand way to explore other lands. While travel broadens our view of the world, few of us make truly life-altering decisions based on a trip out of the country. But don’t tell that to the DePaul students who give their time and talents to Global Brigades (GB), a student-founded, student-run organization that seeks to create positive change globally. Not only are these students helping to change the world for others, but they are also moving their lives in directions many never imagined.

It’s cliché, but to be able to travel abroad and first-hand see the difference in culture and lack of resources in these areas is life changing,” he said. “I think people don’t realize what they have and take for granted the environment we live in compared to the rest of the world.”

The University’s Global Brigades Medical Chapter was founded a year and a half ago, and each year since, volunteers have gone to under-served foreign countries on their annual medical mission trip…“We have to gather enough money and supplies so we can hire the doctors, the dentists, the pharmacists, the nurses,” said club president and biological sciences senior Danielle Raslan. “We have nearly a 10-page list of medications that we bring on the brigade, like multi-vitamins and various antibiotics.”

During Intersession, 25 students spent six days in Honduras sorting medications, shadowing doctors, seeing patients and running a temporary clinic for nearby citizens. The medical care they provided motivated citizens from all over the area to travel to the temporary clinic. Some citizens were rumored to have walked for over two hours to receive the medical care that Hopkins students were helping to deliver.

Jordan said the most rewarding part of her experience was, “figuring out how to merge different ideas -such as students with different majors in the states and diverse Panamanian community members. We found that although from different backgrounds, we had more similarities than differences and therefore it was easy and fun to work together.”

“Global Brigades is a good way to explore if you want to do pre-med,” said Jarren Santos ’17, one of the trip’s participants. “There were a lot of people who have the intent of doing pre-med, but maybe during the trip they really enjoyed working in the pharmacy that they had available there or maybe they liked shadowing the dentists there. We did this thing called a hybrid brigade where we not only shadow medical physicians, but we do the public health portion where you help build a family’s home and help educate smaller communities about hygiene and preventative measures.”

When asked, “why do you go on brigades?” Sumida replies, “I participate on brigades because I am passionate about improving health and economic development globally. The holistic approach Global Brigades takes when collaborating with communities has always resonated with me. The volunteers and community members I have met through participating on brigades have also created some of the most genuine and uplifting relationships I have ever developed in my life.”

Global Brigades model includes a holistic view, so not only medical and public health come into play. There are things to offer engineers, business majors, even art students,” said Srour, a pre-med anthropology major. “Global Brigade doesn’t discriminate. If you are looking for an eye-opening experience and willing to work hard, please contact us because I can promise you that you’ll find something in Global Brigades you didn’t even know existed.”