A Conversation with Vivian Onano

"I think it’s my duty to share the same stories on a larger platform so that we can discuss the possible solutions to some of the problems that are facing the people... there is so much power in you. There is so much power in your voice and if you come together, then there is so much more that you can achieve as a group."

Today it is my pleasure to introduce to you to Vivian Onano. Vivian was born and raised in Kenya, and is now pursuing a degree in Biology, Business Administration, and Economics at Carthage College. While in high school Vivian volunteered at Kenyatta Hospital, one of the largest referral hospitals in East &Central Africa, Mama Maria Clinic, and Flying Kites Children's Home. At Carthage, Vivian is a Half the Sky ambassador, ONE student, and is currently starting a FACE AIDS chapter.

In this conversation, Vivian shares how she uses her voice and community to create the change she wants to see in the world. For more on Vivian's story, check out this recent feature by ONE.


Can you tell me a little bit of your background? You’re doing a ton of things between Half the Sky, ONE, FACE AIDS, and conferences all over the summer. How did you get involved in this work?
Gladly. I was born and raised in Kenya. I went to both primary and high school in Kenya. I then came to United States in 2010 when I got a full scholarship with Carthage College, where I’ll graduate next year. The campus is very cold!

Growing up, I always loved serving other people. It’s something I learned from my grandmother whom I lived with when I was growing up. She went out of her way to help the people around her. She would share the food that she had at home. If somebody needed help-- somebody was sick-- she’d call and take care of him or her. I learned so much from her. I learned that you don’t have to have so much for you to give. You can share the little much you have and it will definitely brighten somebody’s life. Since then, I started volunteering when I was still in Kenya. I did a lot of volunteer work when I was in high school, both in school and outside school. I decided to use the power of my voice to affect change and so far it works and I’m still trying to do as much as I can.


Obviously you’re involved with a range of issues. What is it that makes you so involved in international development and global health? What is it that drives you?
What really drives me? I don’t know. I feel so happy when I’m very involved on these causes because not so many young people have this same platform. So, how am I using it to create opportunities for other young people? How am I using it to organize with other people? One of my greatest drives is personal satisfaction, and just knowing that by doing this, I’m creating an opportunity for somebody else. By doing this, I’m amplifying somebody’s voice that doesn’t have the same platform that I do. I’ve met people, I’ve listened to stories, and people keep on sharing their stories with me. I think it’s my duty to share the same stories on a larger platform so that we can discuss the possible solutions to some of the problems that are facing the people on the ground floor and not on the same table with most of our leaders.


Tell me about some of those platforms. I know that you’ve been traveling extensively this summer to different conferences and meetings and summits. Can you tell me a little bit about what you’ve been up to and the different platforms that you use to amplify those voices and share those stories?
I’ve been involved in a lot of speaking engagements, like the Clinton Global Initiative. I have spoken twice or thrice at the U.N. Two years ago I was invited to the White House. These are opportunities that not every student has access to. So, what am I doing with these opportunities? Do I just go there speak there and then leave and have everyone be like “Oh, we don’t even know why she was even here.” You have to go and have to have a case to present so that when you leave, people will always remember and say, “She said this and this is what we need to do” or “We discussed this and that so we can further our own discussion.” So I think I’ve used my conferences to create networks, build relationship with people, and also to share my passion and to share people’s stories that I’ve listened to, I’ve witnessed, and that I’ve passed on.


The power of stories and combining that with a sense of community of young people like you all over the world who are engaged in these issues, is very inspiring. In your work either as a ONE member or any of the things that you do, what are the biggest barriers that you see to getting other students involved in this kind of work?
One main problem is identifying your passion and your purpose in life. You should also grab and make use of opportunities because you need to have a network. The world is so connected that you can’t just live alone. You have to build on your network. Most people just have excuses and never want to go the extra mile. But there is so much power in you. There is so much power in your voice and if you come together, then there is so much more that you can achieve as a group. Most young people lack self confidence. Most young people don’t believe in the potential in themselves. So it takes them a long time to come out, even if they mean well, but to come out and do what they want to do in their community.


You have such a strong voice and you’ve found your passion. How do you help other people get over that? How do you help other people discover their own voice and passion in this life?
Recently I was just talking to a friend of mine she was like “Oh, Vivian there’s nothing I’ll ever achieve on this planet. I feel like, since I came to college, I’m worth less.” We had a heart to heart talk, and at the end of it she realized that she has so much potential in her. She realized that we share many insecurities and problems but I just chose to ignore them and focus. Most young people fear rejection and in the world today you are going to be rejected by so many people but again you are going to be accepted by so many people. It might take a lot of rejections for you to be accepted, but that’s how you build on your career, that’s how you build on your confidence. And that’s how life is. I mean, that’s the beauty of life because there are so many lessons that come with rejection and I have used my rejection to build my networks.


You’ve talked a lot about opportunities and jobs and networking and the future. Can you tell me about some of your professional goals and aspirations?
My main goal in life is to create sustainable healthcare systems in rural parts of Africa. That’s my ultimate goal in life. And in between, just being happy and doing what makes me happy. Right now everything is about sustainability. People need to come up with a sustainable model to these global issues that you’re talking about. 

Are there organizations or people doing work in this space that you think are really excellent, specifically from the sustainability aspect?

I know quite a number of organizations that I think are doing a good job, but still I don’t think that everyone is excellent. There is still room for improvements. When I talk about sustainability, I think of a model that can thrive whether there are donors or no donors. Most projects in developing countries are donor-funded, so if the donors decide to back off, then it means so many lives are going to be affected and people will go back to square one and start all over again. I don’t think that should be the issue with the current generation. I think we should be speaking a different language than that.

Acknowledgements: Thank you to Vivian McElroy and Rasna Suri for transcribing this interview.

Spotlight On: Dipika Gaur

"Rwanda definitely changed my life and was my started point where I was like 'Yeah, I’m in this for good.'"

Today I'd like to introduce you to Dipika Gaur. Dipika is a New York City native who is currently approaching her final semester at NYU. As a college sophomore, Dipika founded a FACE AIDS chapter on campus. That experience led her to Rwanda, where she learned about the centrality of dignity in providing health care.

In this conversation, Dipika reflects on how the power of community can inspire one to get, and stay, involved in global health work.



How did you get involved in global health? Why did you want to get involved in something like FACE AIDS?

After my freshman year,-- after surviving college and discovering I didn’t want to be a doctor-- I typed into Google, “I want to go to Africa”. The Rwanda Student Leadership Trip came up and I wound up clicking through the FACE AIDS web page. It looked interesting and so I decided I would start a chapter and apply to the trip. After the first phone call I had with you, when I was able to understand what FACE AIDS was about, I felt really drawn to the organization.

I have a very strong history of people telling me "You have to become someone before you can do anything, like become a doctor." When someone tells you something for long enough it becomes ingrained in your brain. Like, you can have an impact but your impact won’t be of any significance until you’re a doctor, Dipika. So I was really really inspired and taken aback by everything you were telling me about how this was a student movement and how young everyone was and the fact that they were actually doing stuff. That was my starting point for getting inspired and then Rwanda definitely changed my life and was my setting point where I was like “Yeah, I’m in this for good."


Yes! So tell me more about the Rwanda trip specifically.

I traveled to Rwanda in 2011 with a large group of people who I didn’t know at the time. It was really impactful for me. I had never thought about dignity in the health system. Now I frame my involvement in global health equity work around wanting to see dignity in health care. If health systems are being developed in low and middle income countries, or just in poor settings around the world, they should be done with dignity and that should be a very strong and central component in health care service delivery. Rwanda was the place where that really came to life and I was able to see PIH’s projects in a different light. There is this idea that everyone who is working here was really invested in the greater cause and the greater mission that PIH worked for.

Just to pinpoint one moment,we met this little girl who had epilepsy, her name was Fiete. She was standing next to me [at a PIH housing site]. She put her hand on my knee as I was sitting and she was standing, and instinctively I put my hand on top of her hand. She just turned around and looked at me and her eyes just opened so wide. I don’t know why but I think that moment will always be my kind of turning point and my reminder as to why I am in this work. It was one of those moments where I connected with a person. I don’t speak their language, I don’t know you, your experiences in life are so different, even as a child, especially a child with such a condition. It was just very very heart-wrenching but impactful at the same moment and so I hold that Rwanda trip very dear.


It’s very difficult to forget that, but it's also difficult to take that experience and share it with others without tokenizing the experience. When you went back to NYU, how did you take that experience and share it with others?

We had a Rwanda Student Leadership Trip handbook with daily reflections and activities. I started integrating those activities, like this one activity “Crossing the Line” into our chapter meetings. In leading that activity back at NYU I could see the uneasiness in our chapter members' eyes. They were so concerned that their fellow chapter members would judge them for their opinions about HIV/AIDS and global health. It left an impression on me that I would need to actively work towards bridging that barrier and creating a safe space for people where they could discuss things like HIV/AIDS. Yeah, my opinion might differ but that doesn’t mean you should feel uncomfortable giving your opinion.

A second thing: I came back wanting to maintain the connections I had made in Rwanda. Building those connections is very important for continuing, both professionally or personally,  to be a “global” person.


I’m really interested in this idea of stigma or fear of being judged in this activity, “Crossing the Line." Do you have any particular questions you asked that created fear or apprehension?

There were questions and statements like “I would hug someone with HIV,” “I would kiss someone with HIV,” or “I would drink from the same glass with HIV.” Those personal comments made people stop. I remember that when I was in Rwanda there were a lot of those personal statements that made me stop and think, “Okay this is how I really feel.” When asked in New York, everyone was looking around at each other trying to make sure that they were going with the flow. It was something I took note of because I was able to see the uneasiness. When I crossed that line from non-personal questions to personal questions it was observable.


At the beginning you had a really great quote that you had people tell you, “first you have to become someone," specifically a doctor, before you can do anything. I think that FACE AIDS exists to combat that idea. Can you tell me a little more about your future plans and what you ultimately want to do?

I do plan on becoming a doctor. I’m still planning to go on to med school. I am graduating this December, and I plan on taking six months away from academia: to just be a person and engage issues that I can’t really do when I’m involved in academia. I’m trying to get involved in women’s and girl’s empowerment work as that’s something that I personally feel very strongly about. But I’m trying to do it in a way that I can just go somewhere and work on programs immediately that deal with women and kids. I am applying to a bunch of MPH programs, as well as Global Health Corps, and then I’m going to go on to med school.

You did mention that having the FACE AIDS community helped you to think through some of those questions, and we’ve talked about the power of connecting with other young people in this work. Can you share a little bit more about what the FACE AIDS community means to you and how it has helped you in this work?

The community is one of the main things that has kept my passion at the level it exists at. The importance of that community for me is to be able to connect with people who are a little more mature. The people I’ve met through FACE AIDS have an elevated sense of understanding. I’ve been very lucky with the people I’ve met through this organization and they’ve all turned into friends.

That’s what community is to me, being able to have friends who then end up being involved in global health and social justice work in a lot of different ways. Tim Spittle, who is a really good friend of mine, is doing microfinance and Jordan is into  IT work. I have no idea what they talk about when we talk but I’m like, “Yeah! That sounds great man.” It makes me so much more interested in the things they do, knowing that my passion is different. It's exposure to different things, it's meeting open-minded and like-minded individuals who are motivated.

What do you think is the biggest challenge in motivating students to get engaged in global health fundraising and advocacy. What are some of the most successful things you’ve done to engage your peers in this arena? 

There are a lot of different things that are challenging about the three areas-- fundraising, advocacy and education. Sometimes I feel very overwhelmed because there is so much out there to read and I’ll never know everything that there is to know. Personally, as a student, one of the biggest challenges for getting 100% involved is that I feel it is so vast. It's about which one you’re willing to dedicate all of your time to.

I think that advocacy is very untouched and under rated in student involvement specifically because the one thing you have when you start talking is a voice. There is not enough of an emphasis on what you can do in raising your voice. The more I talk about it, there's this group of individuals who are willing to be vocal but how do you get everyone else to be vocal? Thats something that I wonder about a lot.

Acknowledgements: Thank you to Shivani Dave and Dan Flanagan for transcribing this interview.

A Conversation with Sarah Endres

"We need to make people understand that we need accountants and we need photographers. There’s a little for every profession in global health...global health is a set of problems, not a field."

Today, I'd like to introduce you to Sarah Endres. Sarah is a 24-year old global health activist from Tempe, Arizona. In high school, Sarah discovered her passion for global health and eventually joined the founding team of the Rhodes College GlobeMed chapter. After three successful years at Rhodes, Sarah worked for two years on the GlobeMed National Team in Chicago as the Program Director.

In the following interview, Sarah shares more about her origin as a global health activist, her experience at the GlobeMed National Office, and her insights into international travel, spirituality, and transitioning to the professional world.

How did you find an interest in global health to start? How did you find GlobeMed?

I think it probably started when I got to travel to Senegal in high school. It wasn’t a global health trip, it was actually through my church.The trip was more about being than doing. We shadowed missionaries, long-term missionaries who had been living there for 2-5 years, and it was about shifting the perspective of what it means to be a missionary. They actually were doing a lot of global health and development work. They were running community centers, they were running health posts, getting income generating projects up and running. It was really cool stuff. That was probably my first exposure to it.

That got me thinking about health-related careers, and it just totally gave me the travel bug. I really wanted to do something international and learn more about the world. When I came to Rhodes-- end of freshman year, start of sophomore year-- I wanted to bring something to campus. Rhodes is a community service minded campus, but there is not necessarily a social justice focus or a global health focus. I just happened to see a flyer really randomly posted on a billboard in my dorm advertising for executive board positions for GlobeMed. I’d never met either of the co-founders before, but I just went to the info session and everything they said just completely blew me away. Everything resonated with what I was looking for. I applied immediately and got on the founding executive board.

I went to my first GlobeMed Summit in April of that year. That’s what really sealed the deal for me. I got to meet everyone else. You know, up until then I’d been getting emails from Jon Shaffer and Victor Roy. I thought these were old soggy professors. So I come to the Summit and everyone is under 23 except for the speakers, and I was totally blown away. That pretty much sealed the deal for me.

What was your partner project at Rhodes? (Note: Each GlobeMed chapter is partnered one-to-one with a grassroots health organization in one of 19 countries throughout Africa, Asia, North America, and South America.)

We are partnered with a Nicaraguan organization called A Ministry of Sharing Health and Hope (AMOS). They are a community health organization in Nicaragua that serve some of the most remote villages in Nicaragua. They train what are called health promoters (community health workers) as a leader in each community, in basic first aid and how to identify bigger problems and how to educate the community on larger health issues. What’s really cool is that in Nicaragua, if you are in a village and you happen to get cell phone reception and you call 911, you might get an ambulance, but these health promoters are on some sort of list with the government as official first responders, so they can ensure that an ambulance will get out there if it needs to.

My chapter's project was water and sanitation programs. We spent our first year as a chapter researching with AMOS different types of filtration systems, like wells, family home filters, point of use filters and all kinds of things. We ended up settling on what is called biosand filters which are made from things like trash bins, sand, gravel, and charcoal, really easy to find materials. Over the last 5 years we have installed something like 600 water filters around Nicaragua. They will say that the cost of the filter for one family is $100 dollars, but the actual materials only cost about $40. The $100 provides trainings and follow-up visits, and you can only receive a filter if you attend all three trainings. They go over basic sanitation and hygiene, how to use the filters, and how to maintain them. They also do follow up visits at 6 weeks, 6 months, and a year out from when they install it.

The Rhodes GlobeMed chapter funds these trainings and follow-up visits, which I really like, because they would have a really hard time getting other people to fund that, because it is not as sexy as the actual filters themselves. I think we all felt really special getting to contribute in a really meaningful way through that. They have seen really huge success- other groups have tried to use similar technology, with I think a 60-70% retention rate of the filters. AMOS has a much higher retention rate. We don’t have empirical evidence but I definitely think it has to do with the training and the follow up visits. And they also have to contribute $2 to a savings fund and there is a lot of investment that goes into the program.

How did the GROW trip impact you? On a broader level, what do you think the role is for young people to go abroad and travel and visit and experience and potentially work at projects? What are some of your thoughts about that? (Note: Every year, 3-5 students from each chapter intern on the ground for 3-8 weeks with their partner organization. This is the GROW(Grassroots On-site Work)internship.)

GROW was very different from that first trip I took. Having the prior relationship was really incredible. For me it wasn’t quite as much about getting to go to a new country and seeing a new place. It was about meeting the people I had been working with for a long time and finally seeing their faces and hearing their stories come from their mouth. It was less pivotal in terms of sparking a brand new interest for me but it was incredibly fulfilling, or stimulating might be the word. I felt very validated- I felt that the work that we had put in at Rhodes was validated by what we saw, which was really incredible.

As far as the role of young people in that kind of work, I think it gets a bad rep. GlobeMed and FACE AIDS do a lot of work to try to combat the one week mission trips and that kind of thing and there is definitely a time and place for that. I actually did one week mission trips all through high school to Mexico with my church, and it was an incredible time, but I can definitely tell you that it was more about us than it was about them. I think that there is absolutely a role for young people in that kind of travel but it should be about “we” or about “them” and not about “me”. I think that’s important.


So, to get this chronology right: sophomore year, you’re part of the founding board, you work on it for three years, do the GROW trip, and then you wind up at the GlobeMed office as the Program Director. Tell me about your experience working at the GlobeMed National Office.

I definitely came into it really really shaky and had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t really have any training for my job. I just kinda got thrown into it and everything was moving so fast and I just had to dive in. I knew I was advising chapters but I had no idea all the other parts of the job. It was loosely defined in the job description. It was a shock to find out, over the course of a few months, they would keep adding things on. It was a lot to get used to. So I really struggled in the first year- the whole first year was really hard- figuring out what it meant to be a real professional and to have a working routine and to manage your time and to plan your priorities and all that kind of stuff was pretty new to me. I didn't have a lot of serious internship experience in college.

Looking back now, I was definitely with the organization during a time of incredible growth in terms of stability and professionalization of the organization and their chapters. Every day the systems were getting smoother and the work dynamics were getting smoother and who was doing what was getting really polished. It just kind of smoothed out over the course of the first year and I figured out my working style and how to manage my time. In the past year I really felt like I was getting the hang of it and taking off. By the end of it, I came away really over the last few months feeling a lot more confident in myself as a person, myself as an employee, and the value I can offer to an organization. Now there is a tremendous difference in my outlook and what I want to do with my life. It provided a lot of focus and clarity that I wasn't expecting necessarily when I came in.


I can 100% relate to that. My first year at FACE AIDS, I don't think I did anything right.

Yeah, I have a hard time looking back in that first year and pointing at 5 tangible things I did that were worthwhile.


What are the biggest barriers that prevent students or people our age from getting involved in this work? What are the biggest reasons that people end up leaving? I’m thinking specifically at the undergraduate level.

Honestly I think a big limiting factor is money. We try to offer as many scholarships as we can to get people to the Summit and Leadership Institute, but it’s still winds up being a good chunk of cost and of course the GROW internship is definitely not cheap. It’s our goal to be able to provide funding for as many people as possible. In general when you’re at a nonprofit, you’re being paid a very low salary. We can’t do that if we don’t have parents who are willing to support us or who got us a good education, that kind of thing. I think that’s a big challenge for a lot of people.

Sometimes there is misunderstanding as to what the field looks like and how it works. So maybe people just don’t understand it fully and don’t feel compelled to get involved. What GlobeMed tries to combat is the idea that you have to be a doctor to work in global health. We need to make people understand that we need accountants and we need photographers. There’s a little for every profession in global health. Paul Farmer said that global health is a set of problems, not a field.

And why do people leave? Burnout can be a huge problem. What I didn’t realize fully when I came into the National Office was that it really wasn’t a global health job, it was a project management job. I would equate it to someone who likes photography and decides to become a professional photographer and they realize that it is really not about taking pictures, it is about a business and marketing yourself and managing money and so much more that you don’t have time to take pictures. It can be a little bit similar with global health work. I knew I was contributing and making an impact very indirectly and making waves very indirectly.

As I’ve grown through GlobeMed over the last few years, I’m not sure that I will always be in direct health work. I’ve really enjoyed the leadership development aspect of my job at GlobeMed. The idea of leadership being influence in several spheres also means that you can work in design or accounting or whatever and still be making an impact. I don’t necessarily see myself being directly involved but I wouldn’t say that I’m leaving the field. I wouldn’t say that I’m giving up on it or leaving it behind in any means. There’s a difference between someone deciding to consciously leave global health work entirely on a moral basis or something versus someone who is shifting into a new career path and keeping that at the forefront of their work.


You mentioned that your interest in global health was inspired by a mission trip. First of all, if you feel comfortable, what sort of religious beliefs do you hold and how does that impact the work that you do?

That’s a really great question. It’s really shifted over time. I grew up in a Lutheran church and I was really involved all my life up until the end of high school. I participated in mission trips, I was a youth leader at a weekend retreat and at church camp. When I went away to college, I realized how much of it was about the specific community that I was a part of. Of course in college it is so hard to find that kind of community away from your home, and you’re so busy with other stuff, so I really shifted away from it in college. I’ve never made a conscious decision to not be religious, but in the last few years, I’ve found that a lot of my values come from my faith background and how I was raised. I resonate a lot with what I learned from being Lutheran.

I’ve found a lot of spirituality in global health work actually which was a little surprising. For me, there’s a lot of centering that I found in my work with GlobeMed. I had a lot of time for reflection. To me, reflection is very akin to spirituality. It’s a really interesting question. I think every religion has some tenet about almsgiving or service to the poor, so I think that’s really wonderful to get people thinking about it. I would like to see even more dialogue between the two. I think the challenge you see, you see a lot of cynicism in the global health field of “Oh, no one knows what they’re doing” and “They’re causing so many problems” and that sort of thing and the whole "good intentions are not enough". I think it would be great if there was more dialogue on what those intentions are that can best be put into practice so that they are actually fruitful, fruitful results. That’s a great question, I hadn’t thought about that so much.


Thanks for answering, that’s really awesome. It sounds like if you’re trying to start that dialogue that your church community back home would be the perfect place to start that.

Yeah, definitely!

Acknowledgements: thank you to Vivian McElroy and Arshia Sethi for transcribing this interview!

How I Got Involved in Global Health

Last week I sat down for drinks with some friends from FACE AIDS. Both were their chapter's respective leader. Our conversation came around to the benefits of joining a national organization like FACE AIDS. Both agreed that the most significant benefit was access to a peer community of like-minded individuals. Learning from others' experiences, sharing stories, and celebrating successes are a but few of the most explicit benefits of a strong peer community.

During our conversation it became apparent that the power of stories-- who are you? how did you get here? why are you involved in this work?-- was one of the greatest motivators for these, and I suspect other, students. In the spirit of stories, I will share my own path to global health.

I was born and raised in an Irish-Catholic household in Worcester, Massachusetts. My parents are both academics- my father a dean at Boston College, my mother a philosophy professor/Associate Provost at Assumption College- so I grew up in a house filled with books and ideas. Dinner conversation frequently moved from philosophy to Catholic ethics to the Patriots and came full circle with a little Aristotle. The conversations were never mere rhetoric. Rather, my parents constantly reminded my siblings and me that there were poor, hungry, disenfranchised, and dying people all over the world who shared the same humanity that we did. It was our duty, as their brothers and sisters, to work to improve their lives.

Thus, my moral foundation consisted of a love of ideas and philosophy, the belief that all men, women, and children are created equal and deserve equal treatment, and that it is our collective duty to ameliorate suffering around the world. These ideas were difficult to grapple with as a child, try though I did. One Christmas, I organized my friends to pick branches off of a tree, tie small ribbons about the pieces, and pawn them off on our neighbors as "mistletoe". We raised a whopping $27 which we promptly turned over to our parish priest "to help the poor". We made it into the homily that week, but I'm not sure the money changed the systems which produce and perpetuate poverty.

Throughout high school I engaged in various kinds of service, but became increasingly skeptical about my ability to make a real impact. Although my school preached the power of service, week-long service expeditions during spring break or an annual day of community service seemed trite. These efforts were never sustained; the programs were more directed at student development than actual social impact. I graduated with a more skeptical, but still optimistic view towards the power of young people to make change.

When I arrived at college I knew I wanted to study something that would further open my eyes to the inequalities in the world and would enable me to make a difference. I didn't know what difference I wanted to make, only that I had a gut intuition that there was some drastically wrong about our world. International Relations presented itself as the ideal candidate. Its combination of economics, history, political science, philosophy, and language created a multifaceted approach to learn about the world around me. Once again, however, I soon found myself disenchanted. I hated to read about problems of hunger, poverty, war, famine, disease, rape, and more, but not have a set avenue to take action. In the spring of my freshman year I called my parents and told them I was going to drop out. I felt selfish for sitting on a pristine college campus investing in myself without really giving back to others. I felt that I was shirking the values that made up my constitution. I didn't know what I was going to do or what I really needed, but I was convinced I wasn't going to find it on a college campus.

My parents wisely counselled me to finish my freshman year while looking for ways to get involved on campus. I could regroup during the summertime. Fortunately I took this advice and began sending out emails to several campus groups. One went to a group called FACE AIDS and inquired about an event they had called the Ride Against AIDS. The RAA is a cross-country bike ride to raise funds and awareness for the fight against HIV. I informed the generic email account that while I could not commit to the ride that summer, I would certainly consider it for the summer of 2009.

The next 15 months were a wild ride. A representative from FACE AIDS responded in October, informing me that the 2008 RAA had, regretfully, not attracted any riders, but that, if I were willing to recruit new riders, plan a route, coordinate speaking events, and fundraise at least $5,000 they would support me in the venture. I agreed and began a journey whose impact I could not have fully realized at the time.

My summer on the Ride Against AIDS was transformative. Over 61 days my friend, Dave Evans, and I biked 4,500 miles from San Francisco to Boston. We made friends, ate local dishes, talked on radio shows, sat for interviews with newspapers, broke speed limits, crashed our bikes, got back on, saw more of this beautiful country than I ever knew existed, and raised $19,000 for FACE AIDS. In mid-August we cruised into Boston and so (we thought) concluded our journey. We headed up to a hotel room on the Boston Harbor to get ready for dinner when something simple, yet life changing happened.

Before showering, Dave and I watched the sunset over the city of Boston and across the 4,500 miles we had just traversed. Our friends and family were in town and all of them had the same thing to say: "You must feel terrific! Congratulations. What an amazing accomplishment!" Yet in that moment, as the sun started to sink behind the Prudential Center, I felt that I had accomplished nothing. I felt empty. What in the world did riding my bike have to do with fighting HIV? Wasn't our fundraising just a drop in the bucket in the scheme of things? How could we-- two sophomores in college-- possibly be arrogant enough to think we could make a difference?

I voiced these dark thoughts to Dave and was surprised to learn he felt the exact same way. He felt that the power of our Ride lay not in its completion, but in its expansion. "What if we grew this thing, Austin? What if we had 10, 50, or even a 100 riders raising hundreds of thousands of dollar annually?" he asked. I had had a similar thought. As the sun collapsed beyond the horizon, Dave and I made a pact that we would relentlessly sustain and grow the Ride for the summer of 2010. Only by empowering other students could we make our summer a worthwhile endeavor.

Over the next two years the Ride Against AIDS produced 12 alumni who raised over $100,000 for FACE AIDS. At the beginning of the 2011 Ride, I walked across a stage and officially graduated from college. It struck me that I received my degree just around the corner from where I had placed a call to my parents three years earlier telling them I was going to drop out. Never could I have imagined that during my college years I would find an organization that taught, inspired, and challenged me to take meaningful action on behalf of the world's poor. I felt grateful and hopeful, but most importantly, I felt empowered as a young person to take meaningful action to address some of the world's most pressing problems.

So that's how I came to global health: with a childhood of philosophy and Catholic ethics; through the study of global inequalities with an International Relations major; on two wheels during a cross-country bike ride; and with the belief that real leadership entails empowering others to express their values through action. It has been my privilege to hear the stories of other global health activists, and I look forward to sharing some of them with you in the coming weeks.

Welcome to Students for Global Health Equity

Greetings and welcome to "Students for Global Health Equity". This blog will chronicle the experiences of young people and organizations fighting to eliminate inequalities in global healthcare delivery. In addition to interviews with young leaders in the field of global health, this blog will also present the lessons I learned while working as a full time student organizer for an international HIV organization.

Before proceeding, I must reveal my principle assumptions and biases. The following constitutes the underlying premise of my thought and writing:

1. Eliminating poverty and its associated scourges, especially those pertaining to health, is the great moral struggle of the 21st century.
2. Young people must play a unique role in the fight for global health equity.
3. While many young people desire to "change the world", there are many barriers which inhibit action.
4. Fostering a strong peer community can build the knowledge, capacity, and will for effective action on behalf of the world's poor. 
5. An unrelenting commitment to partnership must be the cornerstone of successful healthcare delivery.

(Note: it should not be presumed that featured organizations, guest contributors, and interviewees ascribe to these same beliefs.)

My purpose in publishing this blog is to develop my own understanding of what effective student organizing for global health equity entails. To that end, I warmly invite comments, questions, queries, and critiques of my work. I hope that, together, we can empower other young people to join the fight for global health equity.