By Grace Lincenberg | Director of Finance
It’s been nearly a month since we started school, and GlobeMed has been working diligently to make this year a success. We have selected a staff of over 60 passionate students looking for a platform to pursue their public health initiative; they are already hard at work! We have planned a global health panel featuring the co-founder of our partner organization, Himalayan HealthCare (HHC), and two University of Colorado professors. In November, we are hosting our annual benefit dinner, as well as a conference to unite GlobeMed chapters from around the state. Additionally, our Grassroots Onsite Work (GROW) interns have returned safely from Nepal and have been inspiring us all with their stories.
This summer, GlobeMed at CU-Boulder sent 5 GROW interns to Nepal for 10 weeks to critically evaluate the HHC projects we support. The interns spent the majority of their time with a lower caste community in the rural village of Sertung, where they worked on an income-generating greenhouse project, the latrines project, and the efficient cookstove project.
By the time our GROW interns had arrived in the village, the lower-caste, or Kami, community had already established community leaders for an agriculture group. With the help of GlobeMed funding, HHC bought the Kami community a small piece of land, and the interns collaborated with them to build a greenhouse. The majority of the Kami people have never owned their own land, and the GROW interns reported that it was amazing to witness how motivated members of the community were to plow the field, build the greenhouse, and plant seeds for sustainable food to feed their families someday. In the greenhouse, they planted tomatoes, beans, lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, radishes, and squash with the hope that the produce would not only help feed their families, but also provide a source of income, as they could sell surplus vegetable to others members of the village. The GROW interns said that the Kami community was incredible to work with because they took great pride in their work, as evidenced by the smiles they wore everyday.
Unanimously, the GROW interns agreed that the latrine project was their favorite because it has such a visible impact. As a result of the latrines, sanitation and personal hygiene in the rural Dhading District has greatly improved. Additionally, families with latrines are no longer forced to walk the 20-30 minutes to go to the bathroom in a field. Although not every family has a latrine, HHC recently initiated a “One Home, One Toilet Campaign,” in which they plan to provide a latrine to each household. To motivate villagers to build high-quality latrines, HHC recently implemented a competition that provides a monetary reward for the best-built latrine. The GROW interns were included in the judging process, and said that they saw some innovative latrines!
New this year, the GROW interns developed surveys to help HHC assess the impact of their efficient cookstove project. These surveys included information regarding the amount of firewood used by each family, the annual number of trips to the health post, problems with the stoves, and demographic information. They also measured the amount of particulate matter and carbon monoxide in homes both with and without an efficient cookstove. While they haven’t finished compiling the data, the GROW interns have found that HHC’s efficient cookstoves reduce the amount of firewood burned by families, as well as the amount of smoke within the home. Over time, this leads to decreased incidence of respiratory illness.
GlobeMed at CU-Boulder wants to thank you for your continued support of our projects. All of our work depends on the generous support of people like you. For more information on our projects please visit our website www.globemedcu.org. You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram for daily pictures, stories, and articles pertaining to global and public health! Lastly, if you are near Boulder and would like to visit one of our meetings or meet a passionate member of the GlobeMed team, please don’t hesitate to ask!
In solidarity,
Grace
Links:
By Grace Lincenberg | Director of Finance
By Ellie Falletta | Director of Finance, G.R.O.W. Team Member 2013
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