Grant Proposal Reflection

For my grant proposal, I worked alongside Jackie Sabbag in our work with the organization, I Am a Girl. In our proposal, we asked for $4250 to fund an essential research project out of Mbarara, Uganda. This research will ultimately identify the best (most sustainable, culturally acceptable, and easily used) menstrual product for young Ugandan girls experiencing period poverty.

Jackie and I felt incredibly nervous leading up to our project, as the responsibility of representing an organization is a very large task. Because this project extends so far beyond me or Jackie, we did our best to approach our presentation with the understanding that what we were saying to the judges carried real weight. We had to work hard to narrow in on what was most important to share with the judges during our 3-minute window. Right before giving our presentation, Jackie and I had to make some very last-minute tweaks to ensure that we would stay within the time constraints.

Receiving the grant money was one of the most exciting moments of my life. The amount of work that we all put into these projects was immense, so not only were we able to see that work pay off, but also to see that we were going to be able to enact the change we so desperately wanted to enact. I know Jackie and I are immeasurably grateful to Mr. Caragher and Ms. Diederich for their guidance, as well as the mentorship of Ms. Estrada throughout our Grant Proposal.

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Santa Teresa, Costa Rica

I spent the past week in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica, a small surf town in the Puntarenas Province. There are no stop signs or street lights on the unpaved streets of the town, but during the 3:30 rush hour, you hear a cacophony of laughter as opposed to honking. This small town- with a resident population of under 3000- seems to rely on communal joy as a source of fuel. Because the town is so isolated from any main city like San Jose, there is a lack of variety in job opportunities, resulting in what seems to be a lack of wealth disparity amongst the population. These somewhat limited jobs revolve mainly around tourism and fishing, two fairly job industries. In the absence of tourism due to COVID, Santa Teresa’s population relied heavily on fishing as a means to maintain a steady income. Armando, our hotel manager and a lifetime resident of Santa Teresa, let me know that COVID weighed heavily on the town, not because of case numbers, but because of the lack of fish on the coast of the su

Capstone Project Reflection

On Thursday, May 12, Jackie Sabbag and I presented our capstone project with our other GS cohort members. In attendance were a handful of budding global scholars- it was inspiring to see the continued interest in the program. Jackie and I outlined the specificities of our early relationship with I Am A Girl, and the grant proposal process that followed. The presentation marked a very special culminating moment for our time with the GIP. We presented a similar set of slides to our audience today to the slides that we presented to the grant donors. We wanted the audience today to fully understand why we chose to work with I Am a Girl, why the work we wanted to do through our project was important, and what the money would allow for within the Ugandan Mbale community and beyond. In addition to the grant proposal information we also shared our take-aways from the project. We spoke about the importance of really being able to fulfill our theme of empathy into action.

WHO Urges the Countries to Stall the Administering of Unnecessary Booster Vaccines

Even though our world collectively continues to be shaped by COVID-19, the impact of the virus on international communities has been quite different. As the United States continues to administer third booster vaccines for healthy citizens, inoculations across Africa are far from where they should be. The World Health Organization called attention to this issue, essentially labeling it immoral for countries with an abundance of vaccines to provide healthy people with their booster shot. Africa does not currently have the means to manufacture its own vaccines, so it must rely on buying or receiving donated vaccines from other continents like our own. For those in countries like the USA who do need a booster shot for health purposes, the World Health Organization deems it moral. This conflict raises many questions like: is it the responsibility of other countries to give their vaccines to countries with low vaccination rates? Who gets to make these kinds of decisions for the international

International Musings

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