Education United States Project #11182

Develop 21st Century Leaders for Global Health

by GlobeMed

Project Report | May 26, 2015
Uniting Grassroots Changemakers

By Alyssa Smaldino | Interim Executive Director

Aloysious Luswata, Founder of Adonai Child Center

Dear Friends of GlobeMed,

Nine years ago, a Northwestern University student named Victor Roy traveled to Ghana to visit a health clinic that he and his fellow students had been supporting with medical supplies. When he arrived, he found an empty building. He asked Joseph, the community leader, "why didn't you tell us that you didn't want or need a health clinic?"

Joseph responded: "Victor, we are African. We listen to our donors."

Shortly after this encounter, Victor went on to found GlobeMed, which seeks to overcome this power dynamic by uniting young global health leaders with grassroots changemakers who are already impacting the health of their communities. Through our long-term partnerships, local organizations gain resources, power, and relationships, while students interested in global health gain experience, skills, and mentorship. Together, our students and partners seek to change the way change happens.

Last year at GlobeMed's second annual Partner Forum, we asked our grassroots partners what changing the way change happens means to them. They told us it means global health practitioners valuing community needs and voices. It is global health relationships that have mutual respect, trust, and accountability at their core. Changing the way change happens means allocating resources and power equitably and inclusively across the globe.

Last week, we brought our grassroots partners together again for the third Partner Forum. Together, we explored how our partnerships can continue to thrive and influence the field of global health while the field itself changes and evolves in the Post-2015 Agenda. We explored the concepts required to develop thriving organizations, including the ability for an organization to foster an inclusive environment, the ability for an organization to capture and share its stories of impact, and the ability for an organization to articulate its purpose and engage supporters who look to them for guidance on how to best make change.

In collaboration with our grassroots partners, GlobeMed learns what it means to cultivate leaders for global health, and with your support, we put our learnings into action. Together, our network will change the way change happens, and in doing so, change the world.

Thank you for your ongoing love and support. We hope to introduce you to our partners, students, and alumni in the future and look forward to your continued feedback and guidance.

With gratitude,

Alyssa Smaldino

Partners from Uganda & Kenya learn from each other

Alyssa & Dr. Noerine Kaleeba, Founder of TASO

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Feb 20, 2015
GlobeMed student finds his passion through globalhealthU!

By Alexis Barnes | Director of Training & Learning

Colin with ghU coordinator from UMich

To cultivate the potential of our next generation of global health leaders, GlobeMed provides our chapters with a national curriculum called globalhealthU. This program engages all students, from Engineering to Business to Pre-Med majors, to leverage their cross-disciplinary diversity and build understanding around global health equity.

We are grateful for generous contributions from donors like you, which have fostered opportunities for students, like Colin at University of Michigan, to have a space to investigate his passions and to motivate him on how to become a lifelong advocate for global health. He writes:

The beginning of my sophomore year I was looking to make a sustainable, positive global change. I was disillusioned by well-meaning pre-med clubs which didn’t fully engage students in important conversations about the work we were doing. Then I found GlobeMed.

Because of GlobeMed, I was able to define my true passion: ensuring no person dies from curable disease. Specifically, globalhealthU has taken my initial passions and helped me become confident that I can lead informed conversations around global health equity and systems level change. I’m also a member of the globalhealthU working group, which empowers students to actively participate in creating a curriculum and toolkit designed to be adaptable for our needs.

These globalhealthU sessions, led by professionals and student speakers who are passionate about an ideal global society, engages all majors and lowers the barrier for students to engage in global health dialogue. It is a safe space on campus—without the threat of grades—to discuss real ideas with fellow students. globalhealthU has helped me clarify the areas I wish to understand more in depth: how the private sector can support the global health movement and the biological and cultural implications behind HIV/AIDS.

GlobeMed has offered me amazing opportunities. I have travelled around the country and immersed myself in enlightening summits. I’ve been inspired by speakers like Leymah Gbowee, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, or Jonathan Gruber, writer of both Obama’s and Romney’s health care insurance plans.

GlobeMed helps students realize the power they have to shape their own educational future, which then shapes the direction of the universities in which they study. GlobeMed inspires students to investigate global health from all disciplines, follow through and do something.

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Nov 21, 2014
GlobeMed Students and Alumni Continue to Build a Strong Network

By Alina Kostreba | Chief Operating Officer

GlobeMed at Columbia & National Office Staff

With the start of a school year and chapter leaders taking on new challenges, the fall is a busy time for the GlobeMed network. Last weekend held a flurry of activity among both our chapters and alumni. GlobeMed at Columbia University and GlobeMed at Washington University in St. Louis held regional conferences called HillTops that were successful in bringing together and energizing students. We also engaged our alumni in conjunction with the GlobeMed at Columbia HillTop by hosting our first Alumni Institute.

As a network we are proud to see our chapters build momentum for student leadership and global health equity by creating innovative conferences year after year. Fourteen chapters attended GlobeMed at Columbia's fourth annual HillTop. The event sparked students to think about science, technology, and innovation and how to intergrate these themes into partnership projects. Energized by good food and conversation at the closing dinner, GlobeMed at Columbia captured the picture above with members from our National Office.

GlobeMed at WashU also hosted a HillTop, which our Executive Director reported back as a renounding success. Titled, "Diversity and Inclusion: A Critical Look at Empowerment in Movements for Equity," the conference focued on issues of social justice, advocacy, and how GlobeMed chapter members can use their status as students to empower the movement for global health.

Alumni Institute brought in Alumni Hub Directors from each regional hub to discuss best practices and strategic goals for the years to come. This event came at a particularly important time as GlobeMed's alumni network looks to grow to over 2000 members in the next three years. Tangible takeaways from the Alumni Institute included a resource bank for future Hub Directors, a five-year goal plan, and a system of communication between hubs. We look forward to more involvement and engagement in our hub cities and seeing what our alumni can do together in their roles post-GlobeMed!

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