September Volunteering Blog Post

Blog Post September volunteering

Feed the Hungry: 2 hours 

On Saturday, September 24th I volunteered through the Tulane School of Medicine Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program to participate in an annual event. The event was called Feed the Hungry with the goal of preparing 500 meals to support the local New Orleans community to prepare, package, and deliver meals for people living in shelters. Feed the hungry was an event organized by members of the genetics BMS graduate program under a partnership with Pious Projects of America, which is a nonprofit organization that aids and responds to global humanitarian causes. The crises supported by the organization include emergency relief, food and water, and education.

I helped prepare and package sandwiches that were subsequently delivered to homeless shelters to help the local New Orleans community and reduce food insecurity. 

Volunteering my time to help provide food for members of the community I now belong to allowed me to reflect on the importance of helping others. This opportunity provided me with a sense of purpose and gave me the opportunity to actively help members of the New Orleans community by directly and actively preparing meals.  

However, reflecting on this project, I believe that longer-lasting measures should be implemented and action must be taken to promote the self-sustainment of communities. In my opinion, helping the homeless and food-insecure communities in New Orleans could also benefit from teaching essential skills that would allow these communities to become self-sustainable in the long term. 



RESULTS: 2 hours 
Another volunteering activity that I am a part of is RESULTS, which is a global health advocacy group. It is a national non-profit organization; however, I am a member of the Dallas group and help advocate and lobby my local members of Congress to pass legislation that will improve global and local public health. This past week, as part of my volunteer work with RESULTS, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Dallas Morning News, which was published in Sunday, September 25th's issue of the newspaper. I wrote about the importance of leveraging the advances made during COVID-19 to help reduce the burden of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS.
I also thanked the member of Congress Eddie Bernice Johnson for her support of RESULTS over the past few years, as I am her designated point person from the Dallas RESULTS group and have been in contact with her. The Congresswoman and her team have supported all of the legislation pertaining to public health over the past few years, and my letter ends by thanking them for their help, as she is retiring soon. 
Having a letter published in the Dallas newspaper brings me personal satisfaction, but more importantly, it provides me with a sense of greater purpose, as I am able to share valuable information using media platforms to help educate people regarding certain neglected global health issues.
I feel strongly about the importance of supporting low and middle-income countries to find sustainable ways to eradicate infectious diseases by providing funding for local research and tools to allow them to develop their own methods to reduce the burden of these diseases.
My letter is as follows.  

Keep global focus on disease fight

While global cooperation has led to unprecedented scientific breakthroughs in the fight against COVID-19, other high-burden diseases remain endemic and suffer exacerbated effects from the pandemic. COVID-19 has caused delays in HIV and tuberculosis testing, which impedes the initiation of treatment, thus increasing the risks of additional outbreaks and drug resistance.

However, leveraging the advances made throughout the COVID-19 pandemic could help in the fight against HIV through the development of novel mRNA vaccines. Testing facilities can also be repurposed to tackle the TB epidemic in low-income countries.

The U.S. must take the lead to ensure that The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria obtains the appropriate funding. This will provide low-income countries with the tools necessary to bring an end to infectious diseases that cause over 5 million deaths each year.

I wish to thank Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas, and her team for their continued support of global health initiatives. I hope that our Texas representatives will continue to work with global health organizations to reduce the burden of diseases worldwide.

Amelie Jacobs, Far North Dallas



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