The following is a guest post written by one of our 2013 Malaria Prevention Summer Serve and Learn volunteers, Michael J. Kacka. Michael will be returning to Humjibre in 2014 to lead two of our volunteer programs as a Volunteer Coordinator.
Mankind walked on the moon in 1969. It must have seemed like it would be impossible to someone in the 1960’s. Being in 2013 looking back, it seems impossible that it happened because we do not see that kind of thing anymore. Something has happened to our ability to use big ideas and technology to do big things. [Check out the TED Talk below for more on that.] That is why Bill Gates has become such a big hero to me. He is an optimist about solving the big problems of today, not by blindly hoping it will happen, but by putting the best minds on the case and figuring out solutions. We can collect data, mobilize affected communities, evaluate processes, and little by little solve problems like global poverty, AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria completely and in our lifetimes.
Volunteering with GHEI was my first opportunity to work on a global problem like malaria. The experience was incredibly fun, but it certainly was not glamorous. Two years ago, GHEI distributed the bednets in the community [known as long-lasting insecticide treated nets (LLINs)]. Our role was to facilitate as local community health workers conducted surveys on the care and condition of those nets. We then coded the data on the surveys for entry into an excel program. That is when the real fun began! Double entering all that data in excel was a tedious task that encompassed most of our evenings. I was fortunate to be out there with such an incredible group of people that the work, which should have been horrifically boring, was actually entertaining.
My experiences in Ghana were a moving, emotional experience for me. I have told many people about one particularly transcendent moment running around with the local kids on their soccer field at night while it poured rain on us. That was certainly incredible, but I am fortunate that I can find the Zen in a stack of data. The heart of any good public health program is evaluation. It is that kind of data that saves lives and ends suffering. It may sound like I am overstating it, but it is not just the data itself. It is how it came to be. It is how a community was mobilized to address a deadly problem. Our role was very small in comparison. We just help keep the momentum going until malaria is a distant memory in Humjibre.
The process of getting to the moon wasn’t always exciting, as anyone who has sat through all 17 hours (approximately) of The Right Stuff can attest, and the answers to these problems will not be an eureka moment in a laboratory. They will entail getting these communities organized so they realize what resources they have to work toward a solution, and of course doing the work - collecting the data, combing through stacks of surveys, and drawing conclusions about what works and does not. It would be nice to always have the perfect solution, but even when using best practices (something that GHEI clearly makes a priority) the methods must be adjusted to fit the population and situation. Eliminating these big problems like global poverty and malaria will be a long process, but because there are people and organizations out there doing this type of work, it is actually reasonable to believe these issues will be solved in our lifetimes.
Check out Jason Pontin's TED Talk – Can technology solve our big problems?
Mankind walked on the moon in 1969. It must have seemed like it would be impossible to someone in the 1960’s. Being in 2013 looking back, it seems impossible that it happened because we do not see that kind of thing anymore. Something has happened to our ability to use big ideas and technology to do big things. [Check out the TED Talk below for more on that.] That is why Bill Gates has become such a big hero to me. He is an optimist about solving the big problems of today, not by blindly hoping it will happen, but by putting the best minds on the case and figuring out solutions. We can collect data, mobilize affected communities, evaluate processes, and little by little solve problems like global poverty, AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria completely and in our lifetimes.
Volunteering with GHEI was my first opportunity to work on a global problem like malaria. The experience was incredibly fun, but it certainly was not glamorous. Two years ago, GHEI distributed the bednets in the community [known as long-lasting insecticide treated nets (LLINs)]. Our role was to facilitate as local community health workers conducted surveys on the care and condition of those nets. We then coded the data on the surveys for entry into an excel program. That is when the real fun began! Double entering all that data in excel was a tedious task that encompassed most of our evenings. I was fortunate to be out there with such an incredible group of people that the work, which should have been horrifically boring, was actually entertaining.My experiences in Ghana were a moving, emotional experience for me. I have told many people about one particularly transcendent moment running around with the local kids on their soccer field at night while it poured rain on us. That was certainly incredible, but I am fortunate that I can find the Zen in a stack of data. The heart of any good public health program is evaluation. It is that kind of data that saves lives and ends suffering. It may sound like I am overstating it, but it is not just the data itself. It is how it came to be. It is how a community was mobilized to address a deadly problem. Our role was very small in comparison. We just help keep the momentum going until malaria is a distant memory in Humjibre.
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| 2013 Malaria Prevention Summer Serve and Learn volunteers and some neighborhood children |
The process of getting to the moon wasn’t always exciting, as anyone who has sat through all 17 hours (approximately) of The Right Stuff can attest, and the answers to these problems will not be an eureka moment in a laboratory. They will entail getting these communities organized so they realize what resources they have to work toward a solution, and of course doing the work - collecting the data, combing through stacks of surveys, and drawing conclusions about what works and does not. It would be nice to always have the perfect solution, but even when using best practices (something that GHEI clearly makes a priority) the methods must be adjusted to fit the population and situation. Eliminating these big problems like global poverty and malaria will be a long process, but because there are people and organizations out there doing this type of work, it is actually reasonable to believe these issues will be solved in our lifetimes.
Check out Jason Pontin's TED Talk – Can technology solve our big problems?
