Global Health Symposium May 3 – Daily Recap
All the Global Health Symposium students went on their respective field visits for the day. In the afternoon, students had the opportunity to attend the alumni and networking events. In the evening, we were all invited to the Presidential dinner hosted by Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE).
RCH Visits: A Reflection with Fazila Kassam
Interview with a student from McMaster University, belonging to Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) cluster.
Can you tell us what you learned from the symposium and more specifically from the RCH Cluster?
I wasn’t really sure what to expect, I heard a lot from Alumni that it would be a great experience and now that we are coming to an end, I think it was awesome and really did learn a lot particularly from my cluster, Reproductive and Child health. It really opened my eyes as to how the systems differs between India and Canada, and how much progress has been made in the state of Karnataka.
In particular, the anganwadi programme and the benefits that are being given to pregnant women is something that is not done in Canada. This is a great programme especially for the lower income communities.
Based on your field visits, did it help you and your group develop the system map?
The field visits, in particular, were really helpful in terms of actually contrasting what is on paper and what is actually implemented on the ground. So we had a general system map created in which we have our idealistic situations based on the policies that we read. But when we went into the field we saw the reality as compared to the literature review we had done earlier.
I think having this opportunity to actually experience this environment opened our eyes into what needs to be done and what is lacking, and what we as future Global health professionals can strive towards.
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