In the News

While other students kick back, relax, and maybe even study over reading break, 50 students involved with UVic’s Global Brigades club will be working on sustainability initiatives in Honduras.

I grew up curious about the world and the idea of poverty. In North America, we are exposed to “poverty” through pictures painted of starving children around the world. Yet these images have never felt real to me and there has always been a disconnect between them and my life here in Victoria.

I can remember clubs day in my first year of university where I took pamphlets from every organization that offered trips volunteering abroad. I never once considered the impact of these trips and naively joined UVic Global Brigades that first year. Four years later, I am still with the same organization, but with a very different understanding of ethical volunteering and sustainable development.

The New Jersey Innovation Institute is a not-for-profit “NJIT corporation focused on helping private enterprise discover what’s possible,” by sharing innovative ideas within the business’s respective sector to pursue new market opportunities, says Don Sebastian, the President of NJII. Generally, NJII’s work focuses on generating commercial success. Its Healthcare Division seeks to improve the quality and cost of health care, a task which has required much research and reflection on health care accessibility.

However, it was exactly this evaluation of the health care field that inspired and drove support for the pop-up clinic. NJII’s project manager, Inaceli Tubilleja, explained that NJII noted a “significant gap in healthcare access, access to healthcare data and a gap in health literacy.”

The Global Brigades is a student-led, initiative organization composed of dedicated individuals who share a passion for making the world a better place. They approach this by addressing global problems, such as economic and health disparities, found in many regions of the world.

Grayson Hendryx, president of Global Medical Brigades at UF, volunteered during the Monday event. He is currently coordinating a new partnership between his organization and Days for Girls Alachua in hopes of bringing at least 100 menstrual kits to Panama during a Global Medical Brigades volunteer trip in August.

He joined an entrepreneurship society and checked out other student organizations, but nothing spoke to him as much as Global Brigades @ Marshall. As a sophomore, he traveled with the student-run business consulting group to Panama to provide advice and support to small businesses in rural communities. It opened Ghabrial’s eyes to the world of microfinance — including using small loans to help lift people out of poverty.

Global Brigades establishes community banks that lend out money at very low rates. These microloans help people build their business and pay back the bank, which then lends the proceeds to another deserving community member.

For the first time, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County Global Brigades traveled to Ghana over spring break to participate in public health projects.

A dozen Clinton Community College nursing students will travel to Honduras in March as part of a Global Brigades medical team. Going with them will be CCC associate professor of nursing Cathy Mitchell and several CCC nursing alumni, who are registered nurses.

This winter break, 29 undergraduate students will take a week-long medical service trip to the communities of Tranquilla and El Retiro in West Panama.