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The Global Health Club of Saba University School of Medicine (SUSOM) held a well-attended sixth Global Health Seminar, Wednesday evening on campus. The seminar is an opportunity for medical students to share their public health-related volunteering or work experience.
The venue was an opportunity for Body, Mind and Spirit Foundation (BMSF) to present the various ways in which medical students can help serve the Saba community by volunteering in public health programmes. Global Health Club has used this collaboration with BMSF and Saba Lions Club to develop and print dengue prevention campaign posters. Global Health Club is also the organiser of today’s Global Food Fair at Princess Juliana Sports field in The Bottom. Featuring free tastings of dishes from around the world the fair also promotes healthy homemade recipes, even handing out cooking instructions.
At the seminar, two medical students gave presentations about their experience volunteering with the Canadian Global Brigades serving rural communities in Honduras and Panama, where people survive on less than US $2 a day. They described how they brought basic medicines from the US in their luggage and helped in setting up water systems. Tatiana Capifali spoke of her volunteering in a leprosy colony in Dayapuram, India. The Leprosy Mission Hospital engages surrounding communities and combats stigma through education conducted by cured victims. Liesha Mayo-Bruinsma was a volunteer at an orphanage run by Nepal Children’s Organisation. She later participated in a fundraiser spearheaded by Global Family Village Charity. Instead of a fundraising walkathon they led a trekking team up to the Mount Everest Base Camp. Aman Haji highlighted the need to place indigenous cultures at the centre of public health efforts in developing countries.
BMSF’s manager encouraged new medical students to join their programmes such as the Responsible Students Peer Education Curriculum and Training Respect programme, which was started in 2006.
