In Country Blog Post 2

Service means doing work that focuses on what we can do for others at the expense of ourselves. This does not mean that we don’t benefit in some way, but it means that the purpose does not focus on us. The purpose is what we can do to benefit others. Throughout my life, I have looked to medical professionals to develop my understanding of service. Many work long hours sacrificing time for themselves and their families for the wellbeing of their patients. They advocate for the best care for their patients during times when they are sick and vulnerable.  In return patients trust doctors with their life and wellbeing. This dynamic is unique and motivates me to become a medical professional someday.

Working in my service placement for the past two weeks and learning about intellectual disabilities in the context of Zambia has made me feel guilty in some ways. When I used to think of global health, I had never thought about people with disabilities let alone intellectual disabilities. I imagined the most vulnerable groups to be women and children but as I learned in the past two weeks, women and children with intellectual disabilities are the most vulnerable.  People with disabilities are often not included within Zambia society. At a time when new schools, hospitals, and other infrastructure are being build, it is essential to be thinking about all types of disabilities to avoid those who are vulnerable from being excluded from society. I have had the privilege to have never felt excluded from my community based on social norms, an inaccessible and unwelcoming environment that has been set in place. From working in my service placement, I learned that people with disabilities do not have special needs. They have the same needs as everyone else. The environment, both social and physical, that people without disabilities have created is not inclusive to those same needs. Needs like acceptance, belonging, having access to the community you live in, being able to use resources that are meant for everyone, having the same opportunities to live a fulfilling life and contribute to society. This is a problem that both high and low income countries face which may be the reason that disabilities were not included in my image of what global health is. But one significant difference I learned is disabilities are more prevalent in low income countries and are more associated with poverty, limited access to education, healthcare, and employment. Global health focuses on everyone having access to health resources. When we think of everyone, we must remember to include people with disabilities in that picture.

I also learned from my service placement that sometimes your work in service will not directly benefit individual people but it will benefit the whole population by laying down work that can be used for policy change or larger scale changes. Unlike the medical profession where your work effects individual people very quickly, doing research at an NGO will take time for the results to reach the right people and be implemented. Measuring success in service is all about the outcome. It is about how close you are to reaching your goal that pertains to what you can do for others. Doing research with an NGO, measuring success will take extra time and patience to see the impact.