EVSS Team 5 International Health

Karen Ngo, 20, McMaster University, Ontario, CA (Team Leader) - I would like to be an East Villagers Service Scholar Intern because I am interested in global health and social issues. Having studied Health Sciences throughout my undergraduate career, I learned about various global issues, and became interested in acquiring more knowledge and methods to approaching and tackling some of these issues. Through interacting with other service scholar interns and those working with East Villagers, it would be possible to develop a better understanding of these issues and potential solutions.

I would also like to learn more about non-profit organizations and their work worldwide. After attending various global health lectures, and having various discussions with students in the Global Health specialization at McMaster University, I became interested in the different perspectives, approaches, and contributions of non-profit organizations. I hope to gain more experience and knowledge about non-profit organizations, and have the opportunity to discuss ideas with other service scholar interns from this internship program, as well as various people around the world. As a Vietnamese-Canadian, I hope to gain a better understanding of the non-profit organizations active in Vietnam, and ways to better empower various Vietnamese citizens by giving them a voice and means to communicate their stories and ideas to the world.

The cohesion of my own cultural community inspires me to do community service. After being displaced from their home country, Vietnam, many Vietnamese communities developed around the world. One of these communities is located in Toronto, Ontario. Without being discouraged, the Vietnamese citizens rebuilt their community from scratch, from the creation of various community centers (Center for Vietnamese citizens, Center for Vietnamese women), community events (Lunar New Year’s Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Summer Festivals, April 30th Commemoration Ceremony) to various Vietnamese NGOs (Viet Hope) and volunteering opportunities for students in the community. Vietnamese students in the university community have also developed their own cultural club to promote their heritage and language to the rest of the campus. The dedication and unity of the members of the Vietnamese community in channeling their frustration into displays of innovation and development amazes and inspires me to do what ever I can to contribute to the development of my own community. I would use the Service Scholar Internship program to inspire other youth by communicating the knowledge and ideas I find and discover in the blog entries I write. I would also communicate this information and ways to get involved with other students at McMaster University, and those in the Vietnamese community in Toronto, Ontario.

I hope to use the thousand dollar Internship Scholarship to attend SEALNet’s Project Vietnam (Hanoi) in 2011. The effects of Agent Orange have persisted for almost four decades now after the Vietnam War. The purpose of Project Vietnam is to raise awareness regarding the lasting effects of Agent Orange, and to provide assistance to the youths, volunteers, and students involved in the non-profit Thanh Xuan Peace Village in Vietnam. The project will result in a sustainable and ongoing program.

Stephane Fouche, 17, Harvard University, Chestnut Ridge, NY – One of my ultimate goals is to become a United Nations diplomat or to work (and possibly lead) a NGO. East Villagers, with the many programs that they offer are literally providing me a springboard that will extensively help me to reach my dreams.

In Martin Niemöller “My Brother’s Keeper” poem, the last phrase was “When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me”.
The way I look at it, community service is basically landing a hand to someone in times of need. By doing so, we are acting as their voice when the rest of the world has muted their pleas of help. In an ideal world, if everyone acted as a servant or a voice to others, there would be no misery. But, as reality shows it, it is not the case; consequently community service is needed for human kind to survive just like water is needed for one’s body to function.

Ideally, I would use the $1000 scholarship towards NGO related humanitarian programs that are taking place in countries such as China, Vietnam, Cuba or Haiti to name of few. Being of Haitian heritage, I would be greatly able to use this to my advantage and apply to help Haiti’s recovery program following the earthquake that organizations such as the Clinton Foundation or the Red Cross are sponsoring and the money would be a great asset in doing so. As a last resort, if a last minute priority/problem does occur and I am unable to actively take part in any of these activities, I would either donate back the money to East Villagers or a club called A Drop in the Ocean at Harvard which focuses on providing support to institutions in Latin America, West Africa, the Caribbean and Asia thus, acting as a voice to these regions/continents.

Lu Yang, 20, Smith College, Northampton, MA – I first learned about East Villagers from Technology & Education: Connecting Cultures (TECC) Smith Chapter since EV offers us fundings. I’ve learned that EV is a non-profit organization that generously offers fundings and support for community services, and I am amazed to see there is the existence of such mature non-profit org around me. However, as a full-time college student, I cannot make time commitment to off-campus community services. As soon as I saw the EV Service Scholar Intern which would enable me to contribute to the society online and at home ease, I know EV Intern is the right job for me. I hope to meet different service scholars who hold the same beliefs about the world with me, and I hope everybody in this program to be inspired and inspire others at the same time.

Once I went to an orphanage. A little girl crawled on the soft floor and reached out her arms in order to touch me. However, we were separated by a transparent window that was intended to keep orphans safe from strangers. The little girl burst into tears as soon as she realized what she touched was just a cold, inanimate window. I know these children are walking on the edge of the city and they are left behind. This scene deeply struck my heartstrings and inspired me to to community service. There are not many community service programs or centers in China. So I consider it necessary to popularize community service in China by inspiring youth, the future generations. By informing service scholars news update and activity updates and helping them develop a deep insight into global issues and social injustices, social awaress of youth can be raised.

I hope to devote it to TECC, the organization from which I knew about East Villagers and this internship program.

Onome Uwhuba, 17, University of Chicago, Mesa, AZ – I am a college student at the University of Chicago, and I immigrated to the States from Nigeria in 2006. For me, the East Villagers Service Scholar program is an opportunity to write about the issues and opportunities that inspire me, and yet learn more about other people and what inspires them. In Nigeria, there is rarely any literature or mention of the problems and issues that face people in other continents. As a result, until I moved to the States, I had no knowledge of the struggles faced in East Asia. I hope with this internship, to gain an opportunity and a learning experience to be able to write about what I feel passionate about, proud of or want to change. I relish the opportunity to read what other Service Scholars and East Villagers contributors write about, and learn more about what they want to change in the world and do my part in making some of those changes happen.

I have always viewed community service as a job in which you do not get paid, but do the work you love, and the work itself is your reward-greater than any monetary compensation. I do community service to be able to help others and form relationships with people I might never have crossed paths with. My inspiration to do community service is to do the work I love to do and somehow end up helping people. With this program, I hope to write about issues that are important to me with the idea that: if someone else reads that article and realizes that they also care about the cause I am writing about, my writing gives them an opportunity and the ability to find resources to make a difference. Community service is hard work, but the rewards are endless. I hope that with this program, I am given a chance to showcase my ideas, dreams, and opinions thereby inspiring someone to get up and do something.

With the internship scholarship, I hope to either donate it to an organization (“Send a Cow”), or use it to fund a volunteer trip to Ghana with Humanity World International.

Quyen Nguyen, 17, Hanoi Amsterdam HS, Hanoi, Vietnam – Since pop culture are accounting for more and more of my friends’ daily chat, I am now having a hard time finding someone who is willing to talk to me about serious social issues without cringing or telling me that “Those are for adults to discuss.” Being an EV Service Scholar Intern would give me a chance to be heard when I want to talk about current matters, whether global or local, ranging from social to economic to political subjects. If I got the chance to be an intern for EV, I would be able to blog, not about music or photography or film or anything that most blogs are focused on these days, not about my random rants that I normally love to post every 3 hours, but about things that I care about: global warming, water resources, children trafficking, food security, you name it. 
This internship opportunity by EV, therefore, seems to offer the best of both worlds to me: I’d get to both blog and discuss matters that strike a chord with me, both of which are my passions. What I’m seeking from this opportunity is the chance to get to know other young people who, despite coming from different countries and background, care about the same things that I do: education, environment, social justice, etc. Also through this opportunity, my writing skills would be improved and polished by constant training and learning from other interns. I hope I would be able to give as much as I gain because it seems that I would be gaining a lot from this experience.

I was raised a very sheltered kid. Even though my parents aren’t the wealthy type who spoil their children with excessive money – we had none of that, both my sister and I were brought up almost as if in a bubble, discipined and overprotected, shielded from reality. I’ve always gone to the best schools in town, learned from the best teachers and earned some of the highest grades in class; yet my exposure to the world outside my safe and comfortable bubble is thin and fragile to say the least. That is why as I grew up and became more independent, I looked around and started to get out more (literally) and see life through a more practical perspective. Not all chidren were well-fed and given the best opportunities that I was. Not all girls were treated fairly the way I was treated and respected in my family and at school. My life wasn’t about just me any more. As I joined more and more projects on various issues such as environment or child health, I felt the urge to give back to the community that had been embracing me. I felt privilged compared to many of the youths of my generation and I want to share that privilege including knowledge, awareness and confidence with them. Through EV as a medium to communicate with other young people, I would want to use my otherwise futile words to inspire them to care more about the world and the people around them. With each new entry, I hope to make at least someone out there feel more positive and motivated so that they could spread the word and take some action to make a change around them: maybe they’d switch off a light, maybe they’d volunteer for a hospital. Any change would be appreciated.

If I had $1000 to help a cause, I would no doubt donate it to SEALNet (South-East Asian Leadership Network). I was only involved in SEALNet last year during Project Vietnam 2009 concerning the garbage scene and pollution in Hanoi; however I felt a connection to the SEALNet that cannot be compared to any other volunteer organizations. Operated by college students, half funded by Stanford University and half fund-raised by SEALNet participants, the project was always brimming with young energy and determination. I got to know many international as well as local students who taught me so much about leadership, environment awareness and how good it feels to be part of a community. I still remember myself sheepishly asking my father and practically all of the adults and relatives I know to donate to SEALNet. I didn’t raise a lot for SEALNet that summer but the team members inspired me to at least do something. And in Vietnam, 10 or 20 bucks was already a considerable amount of money and I’m glad that I could contribute that to SEALNet. With $1000, SEALNet would be able to do so much more. If possible, I would split the $1000 into multiple parts so that I could donate it all SEALNet projects, not just in Vietnam but also in other ASEAN countries. Maybe it’s not a lot, from a financial viewpoint, but it would mean a lot to SEALNet I’m sure.