Public Health in Paradise
Sophie Jarvis
2nd Year MPH Global Health Epidemiology Student
My name is Sophie Jarvis; I am a second-year MPH student in Global Health Epidemiology. I was SO fortunate to spend my spring break in Grenada. I soaked up the sun and worked really hard on completing a public health project that would be useful to the Ministry of Social and Community Development, Housing, and Gender Affairs. I met so many amazing people who worked for all sorts of organizations assisting people with disabilities and people who had a disability themselves. Because I spoke with all these people, I definitely grew in my ability to communicate effectively and interview with empathy. At the end of the week, we were able to present our information and project to a group of people including the Minister and the dean from the school of public health! This was incredibly beneficial to my personal and professional growth. Public speaking has always been difficult for me, but I felt very confident and comfortable about our presentation.
It was also really exciting to meet all the amazing people on the island. So many people are so passionate about the disability community, and it was beautiful to see the work they do and the love they have for their neighbors. A lot of the organizations there operate with fewer resources than they truly need and people are working tirelessly to support each other. Speaking with people there, it is clear to see that they all want changes in the way people with disabilities are accommodated. They gave us a good understanding of where things lie now and changes that could be impactful.
I could not have accomplished anything without my team. We were able to split up our tasks and get everything done that we needed to in the limited amount of time we have. If we hadn’t been able to communicate well with each other, that would not have been possible. It also really helped that we all felt so passionate about the topic we worked on. We also had help from the ministry, specifically from Nazim, who set up all our meetings and coordinated our schedule! He clearly has a passion for this work and was very motivated to help us get the information we needed to create a useful project.
The week was difficult due to the limited time we had on the island. There were so many things I wanted to get done and that I wanted to provide for the community. I wish that we had been able to get them everything they need and push our project further along, but I am proud of what we accomplished. I think we did everything we could in the week we were there. It helps that we still have the rest of the semester to continue working on things for the Ministry and I’m hopeful we can continue to provide them with paperwork and a framework for the disability inclusion task force we proposed!
