Rice students chronicling Africa trip online

Rice students chronicling Africa trip online

RICE NEWS AND STAFF REPORTS

Seven Rice University undergraduates are working in Africa for two months this summer in Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana and Malawi. The students will test health-care tools of their own design and work alongside doctors at Baylor Pediatric AIDS Initiative clinics.

The students are chronicling their experiences online at www.owlsbeyondborders.rice.edu.

The undergraduates took a multidisciplinary course at Rice last spring called “Introduction to Global Health Issues,” where some of them designed technologies they will implement in clinics and schools as part of an internship. The course, which was developed through Rice’s Beyond Traditional Borders (BTB) program, exposes students to global health issues.

“Feedback on the blogs has been very positive,” said BTB Director Yvette Mirabal. “It’s fascinating to follow the students’ day-to-day experiences as they meet people and see how HIV/AIDS impacts the lives of children and families in Africa.”

The 2007 interns include:

Mbabane, Swaziland
David Dallas, a senior health sciences major, and Tessa Elliott, a graduating senior in environmental and earth science, will help implement an infant feeding program at the government hospital in Mbabane, in collaboration with UNICEF.

Lilongwe, Malawi
Kim Bennett, a senior bioengineering major, will accompany Dr. Ellie Click throughout Malawi and help Click conduct intensive training at hospitals. The training is part of a pilot project to test new methods of infant HIV diagnosis.

Maseru, Lesotho
Sophie Kim, a biological sciences senior, and Christina Lagos, an international health and policy senior, will roll out an after-school activities club to promote interest in science and health education with a focus on HIV/AIDS.

Gaborone, Botswana
Rachel Solnick, a sophomore psychology major, and Lindsay Zwiener, a junior health sciences and health policy major, will conduct pilot tests and compare self-designed software that generates pictorial medication guides. They will assess whether these guides help caregivers provide proper doses of anti-retroviral medications at the right times.