My Reason For Adventure

When a person attempts to fix the problems of a well-established system, they rarely succeed. Much more effective is when many people working in many different communities spur grassroots change, conquering the problem from the bottom up. This upcoming fall Global Citizen Year will give 57 Fellows the tools they need to create positive social change in a few communities all over the globe, and I am thrilled to say that I am one of them. My name is Lucy Blumberg, and I am unbelievably excited that I will be spending my Global Citizen Year in Senegal, hopefully tackling the issue of deficiencies in public health.

My interest in both West Africa and in health care started during my trip to Ghana the summer before my senior year. The culture was unbelievably vibrant and welcoming, full of celebration and courage in the face of monumental hardships. We met families that had to walk five miles to the nearest hospital, as well as HIV/AIDS patients who couldn’t get their medications because they weren’t able to afford insurance, and who were ostracized by their employers and even their families when their HIV status was discovered. Such differences between the developing world and our own world of material comforts was completely stunning and new to me, and my brief seven week stay left me hungry for more time in the developing world. I formed a global perspective that was truly built on world experiences, one that would lead me to affect change in whatever community I end up in, be it a small village in Senegal, an Illinoisan college town, or a niche I have yet to discover.