Community Engagement

Global Brigades

I have been involved with Global Brigades, a club on campus whose mission is “to empower volunteers and under-resourced communities to resolve global health and economic disparities” through its core values of sustainability and holistic development during my past four years at Pitt. I cannot even begin to describe my passion and commitment to this organization. After a year of learning about the organization’s values and admiring the culture of education, critical thinking, and thoughtfulness leaders in the club tried to create my freshman year, as well as attending the public health brigades for the first time that May, I knew I had to become involved to give back to the organization for all that it had given me.

  https://www.globalbrigades.org/

LEADERSHIP POSITIONS:

Public Health Brigades Recruitment Chair (2017-2018)

  • Recruited 17 members to the Pitt public health brigades
  • Coordinated trip to Honduras in May 2018 and organized members to build latrine and hygiene station with community members in rural Honduras

Executive Board Education Chair (2018-2019)

  • Led and facilitated all meetings, group discussions, and activities to further members’ understanding of sustainable development and service learning
  • Led project to design and create two Global Brigades promotional videos to recruit members

Campus Chairperson (2019-2020)

  • Expanded Pitt Global Brigades by supporting the start-up of Pitt’s first dental brigades
    • Doubled Pitt’s membership from 50 members last year to 100 committed members who had planned to attend brigades May of 2020.
  • Started Big/Littles mentorship program & created extensive volunteering opportunities with Days for Girls (sustainable menstrual health organization)
  • Organized and led educational meeting on a new topic: Feminism in Latin America
  • Strengthened internal leadership by initiating campus council meetings with both executive board and brigade leaders, which was previously unprecedented, for greater collaboration and communication.
  • Planned and led the annual spring Student Leadership Conference

Global Public Health Brigades

I have attended the Pitt Global Public Health Brigades, which lasts for a week in May each, in my freshman and sophomore spring, once as a regular brigader and the second time around, as the public health brigades recruitment chair.

This may only be a one week trip, but these two, one week trips to Honduras were some of the most transformative experiences that I have had at Pitt. These brigades opened my eyes to inequities that I could not have imagined before I left the US. On my very first brigade, I found myself walking along dirt roads, doing in-home visits with Global Brigades staff to families who could not have their health care needs met because the nearest clinic was an hour away. By talking to community members, I learned how the price of coca-cola is cheaper than that of water, causing children to consume infinitely more coke than water, leading to cavities and tooth decay.

However, in traveling to Honduras to provide my service and volunteer work in building a latrine and hygeine station with a family in a rural community that we were paired with, I always felt that I left with more than I ever gave. In that short time that I was in Honduras, I got to practice my Spanish, crack jokes left and right, dance and play soccer with the children, be served delicious Honduran coffee and pancakes and their famous huevos y frijoles, and build memories of a lifetime.

A Global Brigades Family Picture 🙂

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

Beautiful Honduran Landscape