Global Citizen Education

A team of three medical and two dentistry students traveled to the remote Spiti Valley between Northern India and Tibet to help 400 young students to develop a health curriculum with focus on their local diet and a culturally sensitive hygiene program as a preventative approach.

The medical team screened all 400 children at the school, looking at how they were growing, treating those diagnosed with scabies or lice, and anemia, as well as checking their overall health.

The team taught the staff a program of iron supplementation that became part of their daily lunch routine, semi-annual de-worming and scabies/lice treatment that could be carried on throughout the year. A comprehensive dental screening of 104 children was done and 42 extractions were performed. The team developed a health curriculum using games, art and interactive demonstrations to teach hygiene practices such as hand washing, nose blowing and brushing teeth.

The school was able to gain enough funds to build a health centre where students who were ill could be quarantined and cared for and the UBC team set up a floor plan and stocked the dispensary. They trained one of the local housemothers to identify common medical conditions as well as how to treat them.

Following the team's return to Canada, they commenced plans to extend the project into a neighbouring valley with a focus on diet and hygiene, and to enhance nutrition through the use of greenhouses. The team is also promoting community-driven global health through presentations at various conferences including the Western Student Research Forum in Carmel, California.

As student participants Emily Pang and Edmond Chau summed up, "It is only through the help of various funding organizations, including the C.A.R.E. Housing Society and the UBC Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund that programs such as ours are able to work well. Thank you, C.A.R.E. and Asia Miles for your support of our project."