The PE unicorn: now coming to you.

One hot afternoon in Wheeler auditorium, I was sitting in an introductory Public Health course, thinking that 6:00 PM could not come any faster. I was fanning myself, struggling to get my mind into gear for another 50 minutes, when Dr. Karen Sokal-Gutierrez pulled up her presentation for the lecture about tooth decay. I had the urge to double check my class syllabus, since this was Nutrition week for the course, but Berkeley time had all but waned, and honestly, I was just too lazy.

Dr. Karen launched into her personal story of working in El Salvador with the Peace Corp 20 something years ago, returning again rather recently to rotten smiles and a dominating presence of junk and processed foods. She unpacked her hypothesis, that junk food and the nutrition transition in various developing countries around the globe were all exacerbating malnutrition in children in a very digestible manner: junk food and sugary drinks lead to tooth decay, which prevents children from eating due to mouth pain and inability to chew, and also instills in children the preference towards junk foods over traditional, healthy foods.

Her project, a public health intervention, appeared successful and sustainable. Implemented in numerous countries, her project collaborated with local NGOs, which picked Community Health Workers to work on the project’s mission throughout the year. Once a year, the Berkeley team traveled to each country and implemented health camps and collected data, taught mothers and children proper tooth brushing methods and applied fluoride varnish.

She explained further that her research relied heavily on student involvement, which was open to undergraduates and before I knew it, I was working with Dr. Karen and the rest of the team and shortly after left to Mumbai and Kathmandu, Nepal. I think most Berkeley undergraduates can relate when I say that it felt like I found a unicorn. I absolutely couldn’t believe that I joined a project like this in the way I did.  What’s more is that Dr. Karen not only cares about the project, but also respects and is interested in her student volunteers and their experience with the project.  I know that everyone already has their PE chosen, but for anyone looking to become more involved in Public Health, nutrition, education or community-based interventions, this really is a great opportunity since most of the teams are in need of volunteers (especially students that speak the native language). 

As I was reading the Participatory Development article actually, I found myself nodding vigorously and making notes in the margins since I found that this Oral Health Project fit the bill almost completely for Participatory Action Research. The project works closely with not just with the NGOs and Community Health Workers under the NGOs. The beneficiary families are a crucial part of the project, since they help the Berkeley team assess the current climate surrounding oral health, oral hygiene and nutrition education in the local communities through focus groups and mother interviews. Additionally and most importantly, through these focus groups and interviews, they help the project identify the educational avenues it needs to focus on and address before returning for future health camps (i.e. create or improve educational materials, find additional teaching resources, develop specialized training for the health workers who will go and talk to mothers and children about oral hygiene and nutrition). 

The project operates in Kenya, Nepal, India (where I am focusing on for my PE), Vietnam, Ecuador and Peru.

Here are a few links for anyone to learn more about the project:

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2012/06/15/healthy-teeth/ (Dr. Karen’s e-mail is posted at the bottom of this article.)

Dr. Karen’s TEDxBerkeley talk last Spring: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnsTvfNXPk4

As for the experience itself, I found myself overloaded with feelings, emotions and realizations that, quite frankly, came to blows with each other. On the one hand, I felt very lucky for the experience. But I was also frustrated that the conditions I saw were so many people’s reality. I was grateful for my own upbringing, but I was for some reason very guilty for it. I valued the sustainability of the India Smiles project and was pleased to see the community health workers and families excited about the health camps, but I also felt slightly hopeless amid all the colossal billboards with junk food ads and the dirty old candy wrappers crunching under my feet everywhere. And while I found myself constantly fueled by a burning ambition and newfound passion for the work I was doing, I felt dragged down when I discovered how little scholarship I possessed in regards to poverty action. So I embarked on the GPP minor in a non-traditional way, which is all the more enriching, and I’m looking forward to returning again for my official PE this winter break and to apply the new perspective I’ll gain throughout this semester. More to come on this, but for now, I wanted to extend this opportunity to you all since it has been transformative already for me.