Summer 2010: My Experiences as a Global Health Leadership Intern
By Abby Hannifan
Vanderbilt University Student
Summer 2010 (May 10-June 23) Global Health Leadership Intern
This summer, as a Global Health Leadership Intern, I received the incredible privilege of coming to know and understand the history, inner-workings, and philosophy behind Unite For Sight’s mission to eliminate preventable blindness both domestically and internationally. Through the intensive process of researching pertinent articles in social entrepreneurship, health disparities and their remedies, community-based initiatives, and strategies in self-sufficiency for the impoverished, I now have a much better grasp of how positive health outcomes are most effectively achieved, as well as how sustainable development is best initiated.
With the technical support and encouragement of Jennifer Staple-Clark, CEO and Founder of Unite For Sight, I wrote several educational pieces targeted toward Global Impact Fellows in-training, as well as individuals seeking an enhanced understanding of the role that capacity-building and grassroots empowerment can play in creating high-impact, localized change.
My completed projects include:
- Composing blog summaries of several sessions that I attended at the 2010 Unite For Sight Global Health & Innovation Conference at Yale University, including “Patient Capital for an Impatient World,” “Enterprises and Innovations in Global Health,” “Women’s Health,” “The Health of Women and Children,” “Lessons Learned and Approaches That Work,” and two social enterprise pitch sessions (one and two).
- Designing a module—entitled "Reflection and Understanding”—in the Global Impact Training curriculum to further emphasize to volunteers that although the instructions on professionalism, ethical conduct, and best practices in public health leadership may seem theoretical in writing, they will be quite useful in understanding the complexities of effective international community development if embraced and implemented properly.
- Adding another section to the Global Impact Training that offers Global Impact Fellows advice as to how they can continue to create high-impact change in their own communities, even after their international volunteer experiences.
- Writing a curriculum for a certificate program through Global Health University in Community Development. This curriculum includes several courses:
- The Communities and Development course explores why some communities, from a historical perspective, are more developed than others. It also examines why bottom-up development is oftentimes more effective than the wide-ranging approaches of governments and multilateral agencies.
- The Poverty and Development course makes a case for why poverty should be perceived much more comprehensively than simply as inadequate income.
- The Precursors to Development course defines and discusses the role social capital and trust play in making or breaking development efforts.
- The Participation and Development course posits that participatory involvement of community members in the designing and implementation of a development project is essential to ownership and sustainability.
- Lastly, the How “Development” is Done: The ABCD Approach introduces a growingly popular approach to sustainable community development called “Asset-Based Community Development.”
Before interning at Unite For Sight, I thought I was pretty well-versed in matters of community development, creativity and sustainable enterprise, and global health. Through reading social change blogs, academic articles, the variegated philosophies of development “experts,” and a wide array of books and journals, my knowledge base and interest in matters of global health and international development expanded astronomically. As an added benefit, the dynamically engaging atmosphere of Unite For Sight—combined with the freedom and agency to nurture curiosity, inspiration, and self-initiative—is welcoming and challenging and exhilarating all at the same time.
I am overwhelmingly grateful that my Unite For Sight experience was so enriching and educational, and I am extremely eager to see where my newfound competencies take me—both personally and professionally.