NC State Students Experience Global Health
The Global Health Initiative at NC State sponsored the attendance of 17 students from six different colleges to attend the Triangle Global Health Consortium Conference on September 30. This year’s conference theme was “Global is Local Health” and was attended by over 200 people from academic, governmental, business and nonprofit organizations. The student participants heard from plenary speakers, listened to engaging story-tellers and were involved with multiple break-out sessions.
Irene Yen, one of the sponsored students, says the Global Health Initiative funding allowed her to attend the conference, that she otherwise would not have experienced. Yen explains, “attending the Triangle Global Health Conference was an excellent opportunity to hear how health programs are being planned and realistically applied to the real world. As a veterinary student it allowed me to meet a different set of people who also inspire and encourage me to find out what I want to do to give back to my community. The conference also opened my eyes to a lot of programs and research that I was not aware that are going on. I especially enjoyed the different workshops I attended, such as learning about the unique roles of faith-based organizations, global health emergencies, and supporting mental health professionals.”
The Global Health Initiative (GHI) at NC State promotes university-wide multi and interdisciplinary approaches to address issues related to health and wellbeing in North Carolina and around the world. The GHI cultivates and expands global health-related collaborative education, research and outreach activities across NC State and aligns its activities with NC State’s University Strategic Plan, specifically Goal 1 (Enhancing Student Success through Educational Innovation) and Goal 5 (Enhancing Global Engagement).
The Triangle Global Health Consortium is a non-profit member organization representing institutions and individuals from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, the international health development NGO community, and academia. Its mission is to establish North Carolina as an international center for research, training, education, advocacy and business dedicated to improving the health of the world’s communities.