By: Sarah Boucaud, Global Health Office

 

It was a pleasure working with our Canada World Youth (CWY) interns, Oksana and Priscilla, over the course of their 3 month stay in Halifax. We introduced our wonderful volunteers to you back in early November, where they shared with us their excitement for the adventures ahead. Both Oksana and Priscilla were new to the city of Halifax. Oksana is from Vancouver, Canada, and Priscilla from is from Tema, Ghana.

These bright individuals were interested in broadening their perpectives in global health. Priscilla saw global health as an avenue for promoting health back in Ghana:

Volunteering with the Global Health Office has been a step to help me realise what I really want to pursue since I have an interest in health. I hope to learn more about health and possible careers in order to create a platform to educate my home country more about their health and well-being.

Let’s hear from Priscilla first, and see how her experience helped her to work towards these goals:

Priscilla

Finally, my time here in Halifax has come to an end! I began volunteering on the 7th of October and so soon, the three month period is over.

Working with Michelle Patrick, my work supervisor, has been great. I have had many opportunities through her and the Global Health Office, where I:

• Visited local high schools to promote leadership in health for African Nova Scotians
• Toured the black community of North Preston. It was beautiful
• Attended lectures at Dalhousie, which deepened my knowledge
• Volunteered with the Student Health Promotion Centre
• Fostered AIDS awareness during AIDS week
• and Developed many new skills: wrote blog posts, learned to use PowerPoint and a Macbook, and became familiar with many other computer programs

I will say a very big thank you to CWY and the Global Health Office. CWY has made an inspiring and life changing program available to youth around the world. I also want to thank the Global Health Office for every bit of knowledge, ideas, and experiences. It doesn’t end for me here. I will continue to promote good health in my country and hopefully come back to learn and gain more skills.