"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.
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