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Student driven global health at University of Oregon
Nestled in the Willamette Valley just two hours south of Portland lies the city of Eugene, Oregon. Known for its amicable residents, eccentric vibe and surplus of outdoor activities, the Emerald City is also home to roughly 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students who attend the University of Oregon. Should you visit campus on a sunny day, you can find students lounging on the Knight Library lawn, the steps of the Erb Memorial Student Union, or the benches outside of the historic Deady Hall. If you’re signed up for a tour, you’d learn that our campus is an arboretum with well over 3,000 trees, or that the newly-renovated Chapman Hall is a zero-waste facility.
You’d also learn about the new global health minor: the student-driven, student-initiated program within the International Studies Department, designed for those in gaining focused curricular concentration and experience in global health.
“Students told me right away that they were interested in more than just a concentration in a major,” says Kristin Yarris, in a UO Today interview. “They wanted a minor; they wanted a major in global health.”
Yarris, an assistant professor of the International Studies Department at the University of Oregon, is an expert on transnational migration and the faculty director for the global health minor. Additionally, she is heavily affiliated with the University’s Center for Global Health: a new interdisciplinary center that supports a wide range of scientific, educational, and service-oriented initiatives designed to understand and ameliorate the world’s most challenging health and social problems. Yarris’ support, dedication and tenacity in both the conception and development of the minor are what helped bring this process to completion, where over 40 students now carry the global health minor with the same pride and passion. Yarris notices this, too.
“There is an active student group on this campus called Students for Global Health,” she says, in the same UO Today Interview. “I started working with them about three years ago, and they pushed faculty to respond to their interest.”
The same student group is currently pushing toward yet another large opportunity for the University, taking place this spring, April 20-22nd.
The opportunity comes in the form of the 14th annual Western Regional Global Health Conference (previously the Western Regional International Health Conference). Hosted at the University of Washington and various west coast universities in its previous years, the conference focuses on the continuously shifting climate of global health and its relevance in today’s landscape. The theme of this year? “Change Makers: the Essential Role of Women in Global Health.”
“Women have traditionally been the most widely discriminated-against group globally,” says Grant Klausen, the Students for Global Health Events Director. “We still see those dramatic repercussions today, in both health outcomes and healthcare leadership, which is why this conference will aim to explore sustainable solutions in creating a more egalitarian healthcare landscape.”
“Women really play an integral role in every level and discipline of global health, and for too long the voices of these women have been ignored,” says Andrew Pardi, the Executive Director of Students for Global Health. “It’s important to shift the focus on the invaluable work done by women around the world, from local community health workers in Malawi to genetic researchers in the United States.”
As an ode to the theme, the speaker line-up is heavily female-centric, from keynote Dr. Araceli Alonso from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to the University of Oregon’s own Dr. Barbara Mossberg. Other plenary speakers include Dr. Chunhuei Chi from Oregon State University’s Center for Global Health, as well as Dr. David Bangsberg, Dean of Students for the OHSU MPH program.
The conference will take place at the University of Oregon, in Eugene, Oregon, from April 20-22nd. The registration link can be found at www.wrghc2018.wordpress.com, as well as information regarding the schedule, speaker biographies and contact information.
“We’d like to give a generous thank you to our sponsors–the University of Washington, the Oregon Health and Science University, Oregon State University, the Rosie Center of Eugene, the University of Oregon’s Women’s Center, Holt International, Mobility International USA, GlobalPDX, and the University of Oregon’s Center for Global Health,” says Andrew Pardi. “Our goal for this conference is to get people to realize that global health is linked to all our lives, and regardless of how insurmountable a problem may seem, everyone can make a difference by thinking globally and acting locally.”
Written by Zoe Cameron
GlobalPDX 1st Anniversary
In February, we’ll be celebrating the first birthday of the GlobalPDX community and would like to commemorate the occasion by celebrating our members’ accomplishments. We want to hear your (both individual and organizational members) 2017 success stories and want to share them with the community. Use this form to send your stories by January 24.
No success is too big or too small, if it moved the needle significantly for your global work, we want to share it with the world!
GlobalPDX Member Success Stories
Development Malpractice In Ghana
Click here to check out this informative article written by Kevin Starr from the Standford Social Innovation Review on how stuff that doesn’t work can screw up stuff that does.
Member Post from SUDARA
While traveling throughout India in 2005, Sudara founder and CEO, Shannon Keith, heard stories of sex trafficking and witnessed women being forced to sell their bodies in order to feed their families. She returned home from that trip and was compelled to create an organization that would make a lasting impact for women and their families. Shannon formed a small team of family and friends and, together, they looked for India-based groups that were seeking ways to have a positive impact and help women looking for a way out of the Red Light Districts. The team knew that safe, steady and living-wage employment would be a pathway to freedom and offer choices for women and their families.
Over 10 years later, Sudara is a thriving benefit corporation and lifestyle brand with a mission that is still rooted in job development for women in India who are at the highest risk or survivors of sex trafficking. More than a give-back model, Sudara enables women to have choices for themselves and for their families. We are working for deep change and believe this is done through hand-ups, not hand-outs. Purchases of Sudara goods and clothing support training and jobs for the women who make the products, and fund investments in a non-profit arm of Sudara that provides for those same women across their entire ecosystem and supports sustainable pathways to freedom.
Sudara’s signature product — Punjammies — is a collection of loungewear that features prints inspired by and named after a woman who makes the product as part of Sudara’s job development programs. One of the most recent stories that is inspiring us is Kala’s story.
Most of the women in Kala’s family are sex workers. She tried to hide this fact when she was at school. She didn’t want the other students to make fun of her and she wanted to do something else when she graduated. As the oldest daughter, though, everyone assumed that she would one day enter the sex trade and help take care of her younger siblings.
That one day came after Kala completed the 10th grade. Her mother’s illness was getting progressively worse until she became bedridden and could no longer work. Her family, in need of income, forced her into the sex trade too. Several months later, a few representatives from a Sudara partner center were in Kala’s village talking about the skills training programs and raising awareness about traffickers. Kala heard their message and asked for help. She saw this opportunity as her only way out.
Kala is now living in safe housing through a Sudara partner center and receiving tutoring in computer skills and spoken English. She said that when she came to the center she was very withdrawn from activities and nervous, but the staff and center “gave me confidence and communication skills along with dignity and meaning to my life.” She was recently accepted into college and will begin those studies next year.
This story and many like it are made possible only through thoughtful, outcome-driven design and strategic partnerships. Far beyond a single donation or gift, empowering women to make a life of their own choosing has ripple effects and positive implications that span the generations of an entire family. This is the type of impact that Sudara cares about and strives for the most – sustainable impact that empowers women, breaks cycles of poverty and ends sex trafficking once and for all.
Featuring GlobalPDX Members
One of our primary goals at GlobalPDX is to highlight the work of our members and we think the best way to do that is to amplify their voices. We invite our members to contribute blog posts that describe their organizations and their work in hopes that you will learn about each of them in greater detail including their impact around the world.
Our first Member Post comes from Sudara, a Benefit Corporation based in Bend, OR. Sudara is focused on empowering people and changing the world. Its mission is to create living-wage jobs for women in India and have a deep, generational impact for survivors of sex trafficking and their families.
Enjoy reading their story and let us know at [email protected] if you would like to write a Member Post.