Today@Dal

From the Global Health Office blog:

The Global Health Office held a very special awards ceremony on April 1st, 2014, to recognize a group of extremely dedicated and hard working individuals, our Global Health Advocates!

In 2012, the Global Health Office, with the support of our faculty mentors Dr. Dan Boudreau and Erika Burger, developed the Advocates in Global Health Certificate. Dalhousie students were already doing amazing work in global health, but something was missing. There was a need to tie together this hard work into something recognizable, and from this need, the Advocates in Global Health Certificate was born. 

This certificate was designed to recognize students’ achievements in global health within the Faculties of Medicine, Health Professions, and Dentistry; in order to promote the development of a global health curriculum, and to provide students with a holistic understanding of the issues related to global health. Students meet these achievements through faculty mentorship, education, skills development and public engagement. And by doing so, they become part of a network of students and professionals at Dalhousie committed to working within global health settings.

Students are given two years to complete the required modules which were developed based on the global health competencies presented through socio-economic, cultural, political, and ethical lenses.

This certificate has three overarching objectives:

1. To provide students with an educational framework to develop a robust understanding of global health. Students become familiar with the major forces affecting the health of populations transnationally, and understand the complexity of global health issues in diverse contexts.
2. To foster skill development in advocacy
3. To increase inter-professional learning opportunities in global health at Dalhousie University

Our 2014 graduates, met these requirements through a variety of initiatives: International electives in Tanzania, Ghana and the Gambia; language training (Swahili, Wolof and French); skills building sessions in housing, advocacy, gender, global health systems and African Nova Scotian health; and volunteering at the methadone clinic, participation on student global health committees, and the STI (sexually transmitted infections) Research Network.

We are proud to honour our third round of Advocates in Global Health. Five students graduated this year and each was presented, not only with a certificate, but with a global health related book to symbolize continued learning. The Advocates in Global Health Certificate is certainly not an end to the global health path of these students, but another well earned accomplishment along the way.

Congratulations to Amanda Carey (Nursing), Spencer Holowachuck (Medicine), Alex Hosein (Pharmacy), Erika Lemon (Social Work), Luke Wiseman (Pharmacy)

More from the Global Health Office blog.