FHM Partnerships
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Duke Engage - Summer 2010
Duke Engage Program - Summer 2009
Duke Medical Student Michelle Graziaino spent 7 weeks in Haiti with Family Health Ministries in Spring 2009. Read about her adventures on her blog.
Above - Kemi Ogundipe on a Fondwa mountain track with gifts from one of the families she visited
Duke University medical student Kemi Ogundipe spent 10 weeks in Fondwa, Haiti, in Summer 2008, working on a children's nutrition research project for Family Health Ministries.
While in Haiti, Kemi visited the homes of all the children through grade three at Sainte Antoine School, a facility supported by FHM in partnership with Partners in Progress and the Association of Peasants of Fondwa.
Kemi walked almost daily up and down the mountains, meeting with 140 families up to eight miles from the school, to collect data for a multi-page questionnaire that she used with each household.
The purpose of the data collection was to look for factors that affect the nutritional status of the children at the school, with the eventual goal of designing interventions for children whose poor nutrition affects so many aspects of their daily lives.
After she analyzes the data and writes up the findings, Kemi will use her experience with FHM to help her qualify for a Masters in Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill, as well as her medical degree.
When asked about her summer experience, Ogundipe commented on how physically challenging the job was. "There is never a down without an up; nothing is flat in Fondwa," she pointed out. And steep, muddy paths after a rain were particularly challenging, especially going downhill.
No clear patterns were evident at first glance from the research which also includes GPS mapping of each home and the paths that lead to it. One child who walks about three hours in each direction to get to school was not the most at risk for malnutrition, for example. Many of the children only ate once a day, but
that was also not a risk factor.
When asked what surprised her in Haiti, Kemi commented on how many family members lived in one small home.
Learn about other Duke student research projects by clicking here. |
