Happy International Women’s Day!

International Women’s Day is a holiday which has been celebrated since the early 1900s. The day, March 8th, serves as a day of awareness and appreciation for women’s rights and equality.  Originally called the International Conference of Working Women, the day calls for equality, especially in the workplace, concerning wages and other career-focused interests.

In Rwanda especially, where the ratio of women to men is one of the highest in the world, International Women’s Day is an important celebration.  Although MHEP and the RVCP don’t specifically hold an International Women’s Day event, our maternal health education courses and our microfinance program educate and empower women to be responsible for their own choices, both physically and financially.

For more information, make sure to take a look at: http://www.internationalwomensday.com/about.asp

Also, for a more general, more succinct view of what an empowered woman looks like, take a look at this video:

Run for Rwanda

Join us next Saturday on GW’s Mt. Vernon Campus for the annual Run for Rwanda!

The run, set to be held on November 5th at 4, will raise money for our partner clinic, the RVCP, in Butare, Rwanda.  Water and Powerade will be provided along with prizes for the top runners!

Click here to enter using the Eventbrite system, where we can accept credit and debit cards.  To pay with cash, just sign up on race day!  Group rates are available, so make sure to bring your friends!

Chronic Disease: The Global Epidemic

Chronic diseases are a major problem in the world, especially in low- and middle-income countries. In Africa, chronic diseases compose 23% of deaths; nearly 1 in 4.

In the next 10 years, the World Health Organization projects that death from chronic disease in Africa will increase by 27%, with deaths by diabetes increasing by over 40%.

Even with these compelling statistics, little is being done to combat this huge cause of death across the earth.   Chronic diseases can be defeated using existing knowledge in effective and economically sound manners.  The question that remains, then, is why aren’t we doing something about it?

Chronic and non-communicable diseases must be taken seriously.  By waiting even 10 years, we are causing irreparable damage and, at the very least, creating a more economically expensive situation to fix.

As the UN meets for their first High-Level meeting on Non-Communicable disease, please join us in asking them to act on this important and urgent issue.  To make sure your voice is heard, sign the Partners in Health petition by Monday, asking the UN to address poverty-related NCDs.

Chronic and non-communicable diseases can be contained.  We have the solutions, all that’s required now is the action.

For more information, visit the World Health Organization’s website:

• Non-Communicable Disease Country Profiles 2011
• The Impact of Chronic Disease in Africa
• Preventing Chronic Disease- A Vital Investment

A New Year

After weeks of planning over the summer, GlobeMed at GWU’s efforts are beginning to pay off in only the second week of the academic school year. Last week, we had our first event of the year – the RwandArt Sale! 16 GlobeMedders volunteered to oversee our table in Kogan Plaza where we sold dozens of hand made pieces of pottery and paintings made by GW art students. Students, professors, and other members of the DC community purchased items from our beautiful selection on a donation basis, contributing a total of $404!! Not too shabby for our first event of the year. One professor asked us when we will be selling again and if we will have more pieces. The answer is yes! And we will be selling more GW student art in conjunction with our Hydrate for Humanity campaign during Colonials’ Weekend on October 15th, so if you need to buy your parents a nice, unique gift for visiting you or if you just want to spruce up your dorm room then come stop by!

Katy and I also attended the Leadership Institute last week, hosted by the National Office on the Northwestern University Campus in Evanston, IL. We had an awesome time getting to know the leaders of our fellow GlobeMed chapters and learned a lot about ourselves and how to improve our activities during the year. A special shout out to Maya Cohen and Alyssa Smaldino for making the trip such a memorable, inspiring, and incredibly fun weekend!

Since the GROW team has returned from their 7 week excursion to Butare, Rwanda (see their blog LINK for more details and stories), we’ve been in close contact with Eliphaz, the new President of RVCP. He’s a really nice guy and he’s sooo enthusiastic and productive about working with us. He also has some great ideas about how to improve our impact with the Maternal Health Education Program. In particular, Eliphaz and the GROW team have discussed the possibility of having a winter cooperative in addition to the routine summer initiative. This means that we would have TWO rotations of the cooperative where women would attend the education sessions and receive land and goats. By doing so, the number of women that we could affect would double by twofold! To accomplish this, we need to raise about $5,000-6,000 during our first semester to ensure the success of the winter initiative. It’s an achievable goal but that means that we need to focus on making our fall semester campaigns as successful as possible and I’m sure that we will meet that challenge head on.

Finally, we had our first GlobeMed party this week as a sort of meet and greet to introduce new members and to reunite old members. We had a blast at Eliza’s apartment and move forward into the new year with a renewed sense of camaraderie and community. To further this sentiment, we will be having our first annual All-Staff Retreat at Summit Lake in Emmittsburg, MD where we will spend one night and two days living in wood cabins, making camp fires, playing games, and learning more about our chapter, our partner, and each other.

If anyone is interested in joining GlobeMed at GWU, feel free to email gwu@globemed.org and ask for an application. Our first General Body Meeting is this Sunday, September 11th at 4pm in Phillips 110 and anyone is welcome to join us (even if you haven’t applied yet)!

GROW Trip 2011

Every year, a group of GlobeMed GW students participate in the GROW Trip, giving us the opportunity to work directly with our partner organization, the RVCP, in supporting the Huye Health Clinic Initiative and the Maternal Health Education Program (MHEP).

This year, we at GlobeMed GW were able to raise sufficient funds to allow the construction of a waiting room for the clinic, allowing the old waiting room to be converted to consultation rooms for patients.  Additionally, we were able to fund the purchase of 50 goats and a plot of land for 50 women selected for MHEP sessions.

On this GROW Trip specifically, out team was able to create an evaluation system to track and report the effectiveness and progress of the Maternal Health Education Program.  The team was also able to attend the majority of the education sessions to ensure that they were worthwhile and effective for the women.  Finally, the team was able to help the RVCP in educating the women, teaching them methods to maximize the effectiveness of the sessions.

To learn more from the GROW Team and to read their personal accounts of the trip, visit their blog: Writing Rwanda.