As some of you may be aware, I spent the past summer between my graduation from Pomona College and my matriculation to UC San Francisco School of Medicine teaching fourth grade outside Livingstone, Zambia (think Victoria Falls.) Although I felt prepared to encounter the harsh realities of poverty, starvation, and disease so prevalent throughout Africa, I was not prepared to experience life through the eyes of many of my pupils. In a country where one of every three adults is infected with HIV, intact families and healthy children are practically non-existent. According to the World Health Organization, the average life expectancy is thirty-eight years, more than 1.1 million children in Zambia face starvation and homelessness, and nearly 75% of all Zambian children are stunted in growth or are severely underweight. Personally, though, I found what I witnessed to be more powerful than any statistic.
On my first day as a teacher, the third grade class gave a short five minute school play in which the main character’s father died of AIDS. There was no doctor, no nurse, no treatment offered. The moral of the story was simply to pray and rejoice in what little life they were given. A few weeks later, a fellow volunteer noticed a young girl continually absent from her class. Upon further investigation, we found out that the third-grader was sold away by her care-takers for a used car battery. The reason for such a high price: young virgins are thought to cure AIDS. Without the help of modern education and medicine, these events will continue to be part of daily life for Zambia and its children. When leaving Zambia to begin my journey in medicine, I swore to my both my pupils and myself that I would not forget about them or what I had experienced.
Fortunately, there is a way we can help. Global Partners for Health is a wonderful independent, international organization that is committed to delivering medical supplies, providing physicians, and promoting education throughout the world, and specifically in Zambia. Even better, 100% of your tax-deductible donation goes directly to improving children’s health as all administrative costs are covered by the founders. I can personally vouch for the importance of your donations to Global Partners for Health, having visited and helped at their Lubasi Home for Children in Livingstone, Zambia. The good news: you have the easy part in helping these kids!
In order to help improve the lives and health of these children, I have committed myself to raising money for Global Partners for Health by completing one of the most difficult running challenges ever constructed, appropriately titled “A Glimpse of Heaven, A Taste of Hell.” More specifically, it is a 100-mile continuous footrace on the Tahoe Rim Trail with an average grade of 9% and nearly 20,000 feet of total ascent and descent. The race, which is to be held between 5am on July 18th and 4pm on July 19th (maximum time: 35 hours) will undoubtedly be the hardest thing I have ever attempted. My training will include sleepless nights on the trails, weekend runs of more than 50-miles, and brutal preparation on California’s mountainous slopes. However, I feel so strongly about this cause that enduring these hardships will not be a sacrifice; instead, I will look at each grueling step as one step closer to fulfilling my promise. I hope you will sponsor me in this race by making a donation to Global Partners for Health, showing that you share my determination, desire, and faith that we can overcome poverty, disease, and starvation one child at a time.