The Tufts Undergraduate Global Health Network (GHN) last Thursday evening at the Remis Sculpture Court held its first global health advocacy and networking event with the goal of increasing student access to the global health groups on campus.
The event was a culmination of collaborative efforts between five undergraduate global health groups on campus: Engineers Without Borders, Timmy Global Health, Health Horizons International (HHI), Building Understanding through International Learning and Development: India and GlobeMed.
The event included presentations by the five global health groups. Attendees were also able to speak with faculty and administrators about their work in the field.
At the helm of the event was the GHN, a group initially proposed in September 2010 and backed by Director of the Tufts Community Health Program Edith Balbach. GHN, which hosts a lecture series that encourages collaboration between the various global health initiatives on campus, began formal group meetings in December and was recognized by the Tufts Community Union Senate in January.
GHN co-Presidents and co-Founders Dahlia Norry and Mary Bruynell planned the event to increase student access to the various global health groups on campus, according to Norry, a senior.
"[We] have noticed an outstanding interest in global health and in international relations [and] active citizenship, and many students felt frustrated over how to access these opportunities at school," Norry said. "Meanwhile, there are all these amazing groups that exist."
"Students don't know which group is which, and what group does what and you can be easily deterred," she said. "So we wanted to increase student access to these groups. We wanted the [five groups on campus] to increase their capacity because we knew they wanted to and could."
Since its inception, the group, with assistance from the Tisch Civic Engagement Fund, has held a series of guest lectures, hosting a total of six lecturers over the course of four events this academic year. The organization's ultimate goal is to create a website, to be launched this fall, which will act as a database and social network for global health opportunities on campus, according to Bruynell, a senior.
HHI, which was founded in 2009 by Tufts graduates to provide health care to disenfranchised residents of the Dominican Republic, is one of the five organizations participating in the collaboration. HHI Team Coordinator Erik Antokal said that the long-discussed collaboration between undergraduate global health groups will prove beneficial to all of the organizations involved.
"We can definitely improve each others' on-campus programming in a tangible way," Antokal, a senior, said. "It's been very helpful. I can't say enough good things about what [Bruynell and Norry] have done."
"There have been people trying to do this my entire career [at Tufts] ... to actually have people come together, and pool their energy instead of having five separate advocacy events," he said. "This event is spectacular."
Bruynell hopes that Thursday's inaugural event will encourage attendees to get more involved in global health organizations on campus.
"[What I want people attending this event to take away] is being excited about participating in global health at Tufts, whether it's [by] joining one of these clubs or attending our events," Bruynell said.
"I want them to feel like they found people they can talk to or ask questions to, and just help in building the global health community," she said.
Bruynell added that she hopes that the event will continue after she and Norry graduate this spring.
"We'd like to make this an annual thing, because we think it's going to be very successful and it's great to celebrate all the successes of our groups."
