HEY THERE!
This is the first official blog post of FYSOP 24 for PHA! We are so excited to be getting the First Year Student Outreach Project started and have some great plans for Public Health Awareness this year. PHA is an amazing issue area because it encompasses so many different and very important issues that affect every aspect of life in our society. While this issue may seem broad or complex, Paul Farmer once simplified, “For me, an area of moral clarity is: you’re in front of someone who’s suffering and you have the tools at your disposal to alleviate that suffering or even eradicate it, and you act.”
Simple as that. Getting active within public health can be as bold as going to poorer parts of the world and helping communities access clean water, or as basic as choosing not to smoke because you know that your decision not only impacts your own health, but also negatively affects the health of those around you through second hand smoke. With FYSOP, the PHA group will target three main aspects of public health: prevention, protection, and education. We’ll get more specific later on, but for now LET US INTRODUCE OURSELVES!
Our names our Maddy and Colleen and we are the power duo coordinating PHA this year! Maddy is a senior studying Cultural Anthropology and Education and originally hails from Yonkers, NY. If you’re looking for a way to her heart, come prepared with a bag of sour patch kids, a new song for her to listen to, or a basketball in hand. Colleen is a junior studying Human Physiology in Sargent College. If she’s not spending time with friends or family laughing or baking, she’s most likely on a run—that’s right, your co’s stay HEALTHY!
We can’t wait to get to know all of the volunteers who are as engaged with public health as we are! We promise we are working on coordinating the best possible week of service and education for you all and can’t wait to see how you put your own spin on things!
Hello, hello, hello,
How is everyone feeling? Super pumped for FYSOP? Yea, we are too. We thought that we would send a short little article containing some fun facts about public health. Just wanted to give you guys a chance to brush up on your public health facts before coming to FYSOP. We feel extremely fortunate to have been given the opportunity to help put together FYSOP, specifically the Public Health Awareness issue area. We have learned a ton so far and can’t wait to learn more. We hope that you all have learned some too from this blog and are excited to learn a lot more during the week of FYSOP. Check it out!
http://www.onlinemastersinpublichealth.org/16-surprising-facts-about-public-health.html
Stay Healthy,
Colin and Nesto
What’s up y’all???
It is absolutely surreal that it is already August 9th and FYSOP 23 is only 18 days away. And that is not to mention STAFF TRAINING which is only 13 days away! We hope that everyone has been enjoying their summers and are now gearing up for the greatest week of your lives!! In honor of this great event, we thought we would send you an article published by the Education Development Center (EDC) in which a staff of theirs, Alfredo Hernandez, is interviewed about the worlds response and continued determination to eradicate HIV/AIDS. We wanted to share this specific article because Alfredo will be one of our speakers on Education Day and we are extremely excited to bring him back. He is a FYSOP veteran and has been with us for the past 3 or 4 FYSOPs. He has amazing personal stories and a wonderful outlook on the war on HIV/AIDS and life. Take a look and get excited to see Alfredo in a few weeks!
http://www.edc.org/newsroom/articles/turning_tide_against_hiv_and_aids
Stay Healthy,
Colin and Nesto
Hey everyone!
Long time no post. We apologize for the small lapse of time without posts, we have been extremely busy putting together the best FYSOP ever! However, we wanted to bring to your attention an awesome article outlining how public health practices can change the world. On BU’s homepage, there is a link (http://www.bu.edu/bostonia/summer12/magic-numbers/) to an article called Magic Numbers and it is all about how the Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office (HE2RO) has provided statistical data to encourage health policy reform in South Africa to fight the AIDS Epidemic. It is truly amazing how a collaborative data collection of epidemiological information taken in the context of economics and social science can make all the difference. Please take a moment to look through it and remember that BU has been a major component in the HE2RO’s success. GO TERRIERS!
Stay Healthy,
Colin and Nesto
Early this morning, (key word early) Colin and I made a site visit out to Brookwood Community Farms in Milton. Brookwood is an organic and educational farm that provides access to sustainable agricultural production to urban communities. It also partners with local hunger-relief organizations in the area; promoting access in under-served neighborhoods. This will be one of the various farming sites that will be working with for service days. Many people may ask “Wait, what is the connection between public health and farming?” Access to healthy, local, and affordable produce provides nutritious alternatives for health eating in areas where produce is hard to come by, such as in urban areas. Growing food near urban areas isn’t only benefiting affordability and accessibility to healthy food but also engages the community to contribute for their health and well being. Gardening and farming is also a great way to stay active and get good exercise.
According to the the farm website:
Brookwood Community Farm strives to restore underutilized farmland for agricultural purposes, while maintaining and cultivating the ecological richness and diversity of the land. The farm is committed to involving local communities through a community supported agriculture program, educational, volunteer and employment opportunities.
While we were at site we were shown around the fields and actually got to taste some of their delicious cherry tomatoes. An important thing that we noted while their is that some of the crops were over run by weeds. Some weeks they don’t have enough volunteer help to upkeep all of the different fruits and veggies that they grow so some become consumed by weeds. This makes our position in sending volunteers much more meaningful because we can see how important even helping with weeding benefits the bigger picture of a community.
Check out their website for more cool info about their CSA share and events at the farm.
For your health!
Ernesto
Hey everybody,
So we thought we would take a break right quick from providing you guys with cool articles pertaining to public health in order to provide you with an even COOLER link to a Public Health Interactive Game!!! Take some time to check it out to learn a little about the process of researching and diagnosing a potential communal health threat. Hope you all had lovely July 4th’s!
http://www.mclph.umn.edu/watersedge/
Stay Healthy,
Colin and Nesto
Hey everybody,
So we are sure you have all heard about the Supreme Court’s ruling of the President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, more affectionately known as Obamacare. If you have not heard, then we strongly encourage that you take a look at a few of these articles and videos to get a sense of what it is and how America is perceiving the decision. There are way more articles and information about this topic but we just wanted to give you a taste. Hope you all are doing awesome and are getting stoked for FYSOP 23…we know we are.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/07/02/if-obamacares-tax-have-solution/
https://www.aamc.org/newsroom/newsreleases/295714/120628.html
Stay Healthy,
Colin and Nesto
