Presenter: Ayka Hailemariam, Public Health Science, Global Public Health Scholars
My practicum project involves many of the concepts that we have discussed in this College Park Scholars program as well as in my Public Health major. I am very excited to combine and put into practice all the things that have learned in my classes and the things I have learned in this very program. For my practicum project I plan on working with an organization called One Love Academy in order to create an intervention for students in grades 6-8 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. One Love Academy is a non profit organization that promotes and supports the education of young children in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. They have three schools ranging from grades kindergarten to 8th grade. The intervention I want to complete regards nutrition. I want to emphasize the importance of healthy, balanced eating along with exercise for grades 6-8. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Sunday for the two months I will be working on research for the intervention, recording videos to be shared with the class, hopefully having zoom meetings with the director of the school, and creating lesson plans, needs assessments, and logic models for my specific intervention.
Hey Ayka, I really thought it was cool and interesting how you were able to do your practicum abroad. That's something I might be interested in as well. I see that you said you wanted to keep in contact with them in order to maybe do more research. If you were able to do more with them, what would be your main focus?
What types of things did you find essential to include in your lesson plans? How did you balance informing the children about nutritional health, yet make it somewhat engaging and appealing?
Hi Akya, I enjoyed reading about your project and thought it was interesting how your focus was outside the United States. It is so cool how you were not only exposed to a younger age group but also had to overcome factors such as a voice barrier since your field of work was international, which epitomizes global public health. Did you only do research on young children and hunger in Ethiopia or other groups as well? How are older aged individuals gaining access to food in Ethiopia in areas where accessibility is limited?