The three pillars of a disadvantaged country are the dysfunction of education, medicine, and employment sector. What adds to the tripartite is the passivity of the people in the country, who have internalised the exclusion as fate, perhaps, with no revolt but gratitude for the sliver. Such is the condition of Nicaragua, a rural area in Africa and one among many areas deprived of proper medical facilities. They have some unsure diagnosis and ill-equipped treatment methods, like pulling out a tooth without anaesthesia. The availability of medicines, at least to relieve the pain, is either negligible or miles away from the native. It is not astonishing that the death rate from diseases which are curable and which are new and fatal owing to the area’s alienation from scientific and medical research. The exclusion of a community, a village, or a country to this extent is disrespect of humanity and a factor of retardation in the developed countries.
The light of the cave, however, is the youth and the progressive education system and its critical thinking. The undiscovered is being unearthed and provided with the voice and right it deserves. In simple words, the students are playing a pivotal role in overturning the structure of the world, both ideologically and geographically, bringing the disadvantaged in the cognizance. An important contribution in their growth is from the Universities and their liberal education policies that certainly do not exclude anything, place, or body.
An important example of such transformative structures and thinking is the Northeastern University’s Global Medical Brigade, a student-run committee that provides health service to the disadvantaged communities. Rani Viroja, a pre-dental student studying in the Bouvé College of Health Sciences at Northeastern University, is the president of the committee.
In the article Students bring healthcare to patients who walk miles for medicine Sophia Fox-Sowell writes,
“Students who join the brigade do a seven-day stint in either a medical or dental unit. They measure vital signs and digitally record patient history in the clinic’s triage station and assist in the pharmacy under the direction of licensed pharmacists.”
The Northeastern University Global Brigade is a part of University’s campaign, “Give, Inspire and Transform” to encourage contribution in the fund of the brigade and enable it to serve more. Needless to say that the initiative and its success is a brilliant step that joins the rest of the world with the disadvantaged geography and community, while simultaneously helping the community to smile without pain. The liberal University that funds and encourages such ideas and innovations is worthy of applause too.
Rudrani Kumari