Global Health Week 1

Hola familias y amigos!

We hope you’ve been enjoying our weekly updates.  Shana and Cara here, reporting on our first week in the Global Health track.  We started our tracks with a week of formal classes with Oliver, Skyping in with Burton Wilcke, professor of global health from UVM.  We discussed multiple issues surrounding climate change, vector-borne diseases, migrant health, and the built environment.  It was muy interesante to learn about all the different factors that contribute to global health while being immersed in the Oaxacan culture.  After our classes everyday, we were privileged to go on various excursions around the area related to the health field.

On Monday, we visited an NGO that provided nearly every aspect of health care to low-income people in Oaxaca.  We took a tour of their facility and it was interesting to see that they had hospitalization services, gynecology, pediatrics, ophthalmology, psychology, and much more.  On Wednesday, we visited a governmental HIV/AIDS clinic in San Bartolo Coyotepec, about 30 minutes outside of the city.  It was a great experience to see how the community and government are working together to provide education, outreach, diagnosis, and treatment for this stigmatized disease.  Some of us will be interning for this clinic for the next 3 weeks, working on different sectors of their organization including nutrition, communication, and outreach for sexual diversity. 

On Thursday we received a presentation on Seguro Popular, a public health insurance provided to people who do not qualify for federal health insurance.  Health care is considered a human right here in Mexico so it was amazing to learn about different systems of health care services that cover all people of different classes that we do not see in the U.S.  Friday we visited Casa de la Ciudad, an organization that works on and promotes sustainable city landscape and design in Oaxaca.  It was extremely important to learn about the efforts that are taking place in order to create a more green and eco-friendly city.  This includes bigger sidewalks for pedestrians, bike paths, abundant reciprocals for trash and recycling, and solar panels.  We all felt really hopeful about the future of Oaxaca and city planning in general after this visit.  Friday afternoon we went to a clinic that promotes education and awareness about Dengue fever in Oaxaca.  It was interesting to learn all of the details of this disease as well as the efforts that are being made to reduce its occurrence.  At the end, we were presented with certificates for attending the program- it was stellar.  All in all, week 1 of Global Health was a success.  This week we are starting our internships and are extremely excited to experience first-hand how health care and public health issues are carried out in this wonderful city. 

Hasta la pasta,

Shana y Cara