The past two weeks were full of activities. I conducted a series interviews with the people to obtain a better understanding of the culture and guidelines for my research, including professionals in stress and mental health, as well as people who work at healthy food promotion, obesity control, agriculture, and other various areas. After summarizing my findings, I did a presentation to inform my fellows working at land grant, American Samoa Community College, to get the staff involved with this program. The relation between stress and obesity is a novel concept to most of them. Even in Samoan language, there is not a direct word for stress, and they do not conceive of the tremendous influence of stress on health. Therefore, it is of great significance for land grant to incorporate this stress management program for the American Samoa Community College’s Wellness Center when it officially opens later this year.
Equipped with the knowledge of public health learned from my college and an enthusiastic heart, I came to American Samoa, the southern territory of the USA nearly three weeks ago. There are so much differences here, culture, family structure, work regulations, personal habits, traditional ceremonies, views of the world, just to name a few. Fa’asamoa, which means the Samoan way to do things, influences every corner in this place. In addition, the natural beauty is pristine and fabulous. However, behind the gorgeous attractions, there are tremendous public health problems here.

FGHL Blog: Courtney Massaro - First Report from Haiti

Hurricane Sandy and I Arrive

Oct 26 2012

Hello. My name is Courtney and I’m a Certified-Nurse Midwife and Family Nurse Practitioner who arrived in Haiti on Monday (the 22nd). I’m working and living in a town called Les Cayes (or just Cayes for short), which is in the south of the county about a 4-hour drive from Port-au-Prince. I’m working at the Hospital of the Immaculate Conception (HIC), which is the main public hospital for Les Cayes (and for a significant portion of the surrounding areas).
With the assistance of VIGH staff and faculty, I was introduced to a VU School of Nursing alumna, Poppy Buchanan. Poppy among other pursuits and after extensive world travels established a 501(c) 3 called Burning Bush Inc. (BB). Since inception BB has supported local community efforts in the Kabaru area of central Kenya. The organization has supported establishment of a private maternity hospital in Ndathi and support of the WAKA Maternity Hospital and establishment of the WAKA Continuing Education Center in Nyeri. Additionally, BB has provided grants to establish micro-lending organization in the Kabaru location. Since my interest is rural family practice, the opportunities to work with BB grant recipients seemed to offer me a wonderful opportunity to begin to realize a long-held vision of working in Africa. More on Burning Bush later.
Greetings from rain-soaked Munsieville! Over the last two weeks, several storms have doused the Gauteng province, but the rain is necessary to turn the landscape green again and help usher in spring. While the intensity of the thunderstorms is unlike anything I have previously experienced, I am not letting the rain put a damper on my work in Munsieville.
These past two weeks have been absolutely amazing, in terms of experiences here and the work that Sarakay Johnson and I have been able to accomplish. We have been organizing many different projects since we have arrived. This past week we have been able to implement several of these projects. The majority have been focused on health education, which is an area that I particularly enjoy.
This starts week number four of my internship here in Munsieville, and I cannot believe time is going by this fast! Last week Courtney and I began work on a big project that I hope will have a lasting positive impact on the people of Munsieville.
My name is Courtney Stanley and I am a senior at East Tennessee State University College of Public Health. I am currently earning my B.S. degree in Public Health with a concentration in Community and Behavioral Health. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to travel to Munsieville, South Africa, and complete my internship with The Thoughtful Path, along with my colleague and fellow student Sarakay Johnson.
This first week has been a lot of preparation. For the orgnization - preparing for the upcoming medical student brigade and the confrence, for me - learning Spanish and helping out where I can. I try to spend an hour in the morning in language school, which is me in front of the fan looking at my Spanish materials. I´m already more comfortable saying Spanish phrases and I can understand what people are saying to me every once in a while. So I guess I´m on the road to success.

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