Written by María Ruiz, a junior at Washington University and the President of the Steering Committee for Global Health Week
After many months of planning, the first student-organized Global Health Week culminated at the end of September. We think it was a great success. As I stated in a previous piece about Global Health Week, global health is a complex set of problems that undoubtedly requires a multidisciplinary approach. With the variety of events and the diversity of disciplines within our planning committee, we truly believe that this was a multidisciplinary week of events.
Global Health Week took a lot of courage. Courage from sponsors to trust a group of students with their funds. Courage from our advisers and professors to guide us in the right direction. Courage from the students, who without having a detailed plan, decided to join us in planning. It took courage from the steering committee to invest hours of work for so many months, to learn, and to adapt.
I want to thank all students and staff within the Global Health Center at the Institute for Public Health who supported us in the planning stages of this event. I would also like to thank our speakers and panelists, as well as our sponsors; we could not have done this without them.
Global Health Week Photo Album | Facebook Page
Starting without any previous ground work was challenging, but throughout it, I have understood that it is needed. It is now, as students, that we must begin to participate, to engage, to listen. I hope that this week of events inspired students and showed them that global health is a field where civic engagement and professional engagement are not mutually exclusive. We hope to continue Global Health Week in future years. By expand our planning committee and getting more ideas we can enhance the events and tailor it to what is of most importance to our campus.