Ghana!

So my dad is going to Ghana in the spring to take pictures of the Accra Ghana Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I'm going with him! (hopefully, it's still in the works)

We have a family friend, Dr. Emmanuel Kissy, who lives there and runs a medical clinic. So while my dad is working I can be working with Dr. Kissy!

I will keep you updated on the details and goals for the trip.

update

I've got to work on my math! I bought a book from the DI and have been studying. Much cheaper than paying for a class I took in High School!

Medical School!

Well,

I'm going to Medical school! I am starting my pre-req's this fall...!

Yay!

Sie you're going to have to help me a lot!

Dr. Paul Farmer is speaking at the UW!

For those of you who cannot attend, we will be streaming the event live so you can log on at that time to watch:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/wgha-discovery-series

Renowned Global Health Figure Dr. Paul Farmer at UW Campus June 18

 

Dr. Paul Farmer, subject of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Mountains Beyond Mountains and co-founder of Partners In Health, will speak about the current climate of global health on Thursday, June 18 from 6–7:30 p.m. in Kane Hall Room 130. The free event, "A Conversation with Dr. Paul Farmer Moderated by Dr. Chris Elias," is on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors open at 5:15 p.m.

 

Farmer will reflect on a variety of topics, including the future of global health delivery and sustainability, the challenge of multi drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), and how one person has the ability to make a significant contribution to global health. Farmer regularly travels

between two worlds: one marked by academic prestige and medical innovation, and the other by destitution and health inequity. Farmer is the newly named chair of Harvard Medical School's Department of Global Health and Social Medicine as well as an attending physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. His unconventional approach to care in the developing world cuts through red tape, bends rules, and has won

him acclaim and controversy.

 

Elias, the CEO of PATH, has fostered an entrepreneurial culture that encourages innovative thinking at PATH, a Seattle-based non-governmental organization, which is dedicated to improving the health of people around the world by advancing technologies, strengthening systems, and encouraging healthy behaviors.

 

The event is being presented by the Washington Global Health Alliance in partnership with the University of Washington Department of Global Health, City Club, and the Pacific Health Summit.

 

The Washington Global Health Alliance is a coalition for Washington State’s global health organizations, connecting, organizing, and motivating groups with the common goal of improving health conditions for people throughout the world. The Washington Global Health Alliance Discovery Series is sponsored by the Lilly Foundation.

 

 

Global Health Resource Center
University of Washington, Department of Global Health
1959 NE Pacific St. | Box 356355 | Seattle, WA 98195-6355
Health Sciences Building | Room T433
206 685-7362 (p) | 206 685-8034 (f)
ghrc@u.washington.edu
GHRC Web: http://www.globalhealth.washington.edu/

 

Take a look at the Global Health Calendar:

http://myuw.washington.edu/cal/setView.do?viewType=monthView&calendar=ghrc

Be Successful for them

"Find someone to be successful for. 

Raise their hopes. 

Rise to their needs."

-President Barack Obama, Arizona Sate University Commencement Address 2009

Hey there's a new LDS radio station! I'm excited. I wonder what's going to be on it 24/7?

http://radio.lds.org/mc/eng/

Podcast

The BYU Kennedy Center puts out some great podcasts about Global issues. I've been listening to them at work. So go check them out!

Branding

So our name is Panacea. The Cure All.
I read an article today on building a brand for your company. It asks "How important is a concept's name? What does it contribute to the brands identity?" it then states, "A name is a promise to the customer."
I started thinking how could we make Panacea true to its name.

So here are my thoughts:
Panacea is an empowering agency.
You, the people are the answer. I strongly believe that each person has tremendous power - due to the very nature of who they are! So our goal would be to help people see that. Help them find their own answers to the difficulties in their lives. Like when you ask for help or advise from someone and as you speak with them you end up coming up with the answer on your own. (it happens to me all the time!)
Each and every one of us is completely capable of improving our own situations. (even if it's just in our attitude!)
Saying that I do not want to down play the inequalities that exist in the world - because they are ever present. Still we each have that personal potential and internal strength to rise above the world.

The Story of Stuff

I thought this was exactly why I went into Industrial Design! (Even though I am still contributing to the problem...my goal is to break out of that!)

http://www.storyofstuff.com

La familia Read!

This Goes out to Sierra and Noah Read! The best friends Ever! You will be great Parents! I'm so excited for you and am praying constantly that all will go well and sooooon you will have a beautiful baby girl! Thanks for wonderful examples and your friendship!!!!! Love you!

Value Life

This is the blog for my little Cousin. He passed away not long after he was born but his families love and reverence for him and his life is inspiring. So watch the little slide show of his life on the blog.

thelittlestclark.blogspot.com

Mountains Beyond Mountains

The book Mountains Beyond Mountains, written by Tracy Kidder, tells the story of Paul Farmer's efforts to improve health in Haiti. This book has many inspiring qualities that warrant mention. However, one seems more salient than the rest. For me, the example of caring for the poor came from Christ. I have a strong faith that not only does Christ live, but that He approves and encourages us to love and care for others, especially the poor. There is an excerpt from the book that addresses Dr. Farmer's experience with contrasting appreciations of faith in the two dominating venues of his life, Harvard and Haiti.

The combination of Harvard and Haiti had begun to form a new kind of belief in Farmer. He would tell me years later: "The fact that any sort of religious faith was so disdained at Harvard and so important to the poor-- not just in Haiti but elsewhere, too-- made me even more convinced that faith must be something good."

And if the landless peasants of Cange needed to believe that someone omniscient was keeping score, by now Farmer felt the need to believe something like that himself. In the peasant phrase, an unnecessary death was "a stupid death," and he was seeing a lot of those. "Surely someone is witnessing this horror show?" he'd say to himself. "I know it sounds shallow, the opiate thing, needing to believe, palliating pain, but it didn't feel shallow. It was more profound than other sentiments I'd known, and I was taken with the idea that in an ostensibly godless world that worshiped money and power, or more seductively, a sense of personal efficacy and advancement, like at Duke and Harvard, there was still a place to look for God, and that is in the suffering of the poor.

This quote resonates with me because it echoes the fundamental frequency that drives my work too. Faith is something good. God can be found in serving the poor. So when we feel overwhelmed by academia and get too caught up with money or our own personal accomplishments, it is essential that we look beyond ourselves to others. There are infinite types of poverty and I propose, that like Farmer, as we serve we will find that believing won't feel shallow but will perhaps lead us to the most complete feeling of wholeness possible to attain.

better

www.positivedeviance.org

Jerry Ternin and his wife Monique of the Save the Children program, working on malnutrition in Vietnam, "focused on finding solutions from insiders. They asked small groups of poor villagers to identify who among them had the best-nourished children... The villagers then visited those mothers at home to see exactly what they were doing. Just thae was revolutionary. The villagers discovered that there were well-nourished children among them, despite the poverty, and that those children's mothers were breaking with the locally accepted wisdom in all sots of ways. ... In two years, malnutrition dropped 65 to 85 percent in every villages the Sternins had been to. "

Better by Atul Gawande pg.25

Go Panacea!

Just preparing for our little dream!