Last Words

This is the last article I write for the East Villagers, and I can hardly believe it. Over the past few weeks it has slowly dawned on me, just how many articles and topics I have written and covered while working with this internship.

I have always believed that you do not truly understand your beliefs and goals until you actually have to formulate a written and lucid argument that tries to define what you believe. Since writing for the East Villagers internship, I have had several of my expectations and beliefs challenged, proved wrong and I have changed some of them in the course of my writing. I have had several revelations—many often worse than my earlier assumptions—but I have decided that optimism always wins because for every depressing story I found, I always came upon an amazing innovation and success.

As part of this East Villagers internship, I will be receiving a $1000 scholarship. So now the question is, what am I going to do with this? In my recent articles, I referenced the time I spent in Australia this summer. This summer, to better further my goals in Global health, I applied for and went on a public health research internship in Australia. With the internship, I wrote an epidemiological research paper with data from participants in Vietnam, learned about Australian culture and most importantly learned more about the public health challenges facing the Indigenous Australians. I found several similarities between the public health challenges facing West Africa, and those facing the Indigenous Australians, and these challenges are what have made me interested in doing a summer research project in West Africa. I have not yet planned out a complete path, but I would like to use the $1000 scholarship to fund a trip to West Africa to work with an organization or clinic. I would like to research two things, one of which is how effective follow-up doctor visits are with respect to positive health outcomes. The other is how the local health knowledge people hinders or is addressed in doctor visits and whether or not this also affects positive health outcomes.

And as for what comes next? Well I plan to continue and finish my last two years of college. I currently work as a Program Coordinator for an organization called Health Leads, and I plan to continue my work with them. As for the knowledge I have gained, I do not expect to retain every fact and figure, but only keep the main themes I learned: research, research, research and try to get every perspective, there is always a shocker hidden in the most seemingly mundane and straightforward idea. Furthermore, as I have written mainly about public health issues in Africa, I hope to be able to use my the knowledge I’ve gained from the articles I’ve written to be able to better understand and accomplish the work I hope to do next summer.

And finally, my writing for East Villagers has encouraged me to start my own Global Health blog to keep on writing beyond the bounds of the East Villagers internship, to make sure that I am always learning more.

Thank you for reading these past year, and if you want to continue, visit my blog, which also contains some of my East Villager articles.

-Onome

http://globalhealthdreams.wordpress.com/