The following group action commitments by University of Miami students were approved for development at the Clinton Global Initiative University in 2010. Representing schools and programs throughout the University, these dedicated student groups worked collaboratively to address issues such as health reform, minor sex trafficking, potable water, and education in South Florida as well as Central and South America.
Klarina Portnoy, Soyona Rafatjah, Elizabeth Ko; School of Medicine
Today, about one in three children and adolescents is overweight or obese, and the proportion approaches one in two in certain minority groups. The United States is entering an era characterized by the emergence of serious weight-related comorbidities: the incidence of type 2 diabetes among adolescents has increased by a factor of 10 in the past two decades, and hypertension, endocrine abnormalities, orthopedic problems, sleep apnea, and fatty liver disease are being diagnosed with increasing frequency in children. The Integrative Medicine Advocacy Group of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine responds to this call by proposing a commitment that encourages awareness and prevention of obesity in our ethnically diverse, low-income community of school-aged children.
Jessica Kaltman, Elizabeth Greig; School of Medicine
By 2020, surgical disease is expected to constitute half of all disease burden in the world. In the Caribbean, it is expected to exceed the mortality of communicable diseases, and in Haiti, a substantial surgical and critical care burden already exists and is largely unmet by the current health care system. A new area of focus that Haiti is now addressing is the emergent medical, surgical, and critical care needs of their citizens through the development of a national network of hospitals and services—a project originally envisioned at the University of Miami and now in development through a multitude of Haitian partnerships, including the Haitian Ministry of Health. The focus of our commitment is the training of Haitian health care personnel in the key principles of critical care management. Development and execution of the curriculum has been entirely student driven, and is viewed by the Haitian partners to be the keystone of the entire project.
Tasnim Imran, Afra Ullah, Shekeab Jauhari, Yahya Mohammed; School of Medicine
Our commitment of action is to establish a Diabetes Self-Management Patient Education and Healthcare program at the Universal Heritage Institute Clinic, which serves underprivileged populations, including Hispanics, Asians, and African-Americans, in the North Miami area. The eligibility criteria for patients to receive care at the clinic, mandated by the state of Florida, requires that patients do not have any medical insurance, are not covered by Medicare or Medicaid, and whose income is below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. At present, the clinic operates three half-days per week based entirely on donations from the community and volunteer efforts of local physicians and medical students. Our goal with this project is to establish preventive care and health education both as part of normal practice and as additional services offered at the clinic.
Shivam Joshi, Maureen O’Shaughnessy, Yaima Alonso, Andrew Coggin; School of Medicine
The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Census Bureau estimate that from 529,000 to 840,000 veterans experience homelessness at some point during the year. Not all Americans may make the decision to serve in our armed forces or even agree with our foreign policy, but it is imperative for us to give a second chance to those who made our freedom and sanctity of our lives possible. The goal of this commitment is to get Joe, a homeless veteran, off the street and into a home, find him a job, and facilitate his medical treatment. The goal is to accomplish this not only for Joe but also for nine other homeless veterans in the Miami area via a mentoring program with established, healthy veterans.
Nicole Sparks, Rizk Beshoy, Betsy Havens, Jason Wallace; School of Law
The University of Miami School of Law’s Health & Elder Law Clinic is an integrated teaching, research, and community service program in which, under the supervision of staff attorneys, students provide health and elder rights representation to underserved communities. The goal of this proposal is for the clinic, in partnership with the University’s Miller School of Medicine, to administer an evaluation of the impact that legal intervention has on health, and ultimately serve as a model for other university legal and health partnerships and health care reform.
Tom Oglesby, Sean Siperstein, Allison Saperstein; School of Law
Domestic minor sex trafficking is a problem affecting 300,000 children in the United States and Florida consistently ranks among the top three states in the U.S. for DMST. We will raise awareness in the professional and legal community about DMST issues in south Florida and within members of the victim population of their rights under federal and state law. The long-term goal is to establish a program to provide legal representation for an underserved and underrepresented juvenile population within Miami-Dade County.
Robert Fishman, School of Business Administration; Brian Shafa, Miller School of Medicine; Brian Klein, College of Arts and Sciences; Jordan Barrocas, School of Business Administration; Brett Abess, School of Business Administration
This project focuses on the significant challenge of helping the Haitian National Malaria Control Program effectively control and eliminate malaria in Haiti. Haiti and the Dominican Republic represent the last remaining malaria-endemic countries in the Caribbean island region; Haiti has approximately 30,000 diagnosed cases and 600 deaths related to malaria each year. Given the geographic location of Haiti, malaria parasite transmission fuels malaria outbreaks in neighboring countries as evidenced by recent problems in Jamaica and the Bahamas. For all these reasons, the World Health Organization, Pan American Health Organization, and International Task Force for Disease Eradication (ITFDE) have identified the elimination of malaria in Haiti as a high priority.
Melissa Meade, School of Business Administration; Frank Zadravecz, College of Arts and Sciences; Stephanie Horna, College of Arts and Sciences; Madi Lindauer, College of Arts and Sciences
Our group, under the direction of members of the University of Miami Rotaract Club, will focus on continuing a critical aspect of education in the rural village of Chepen, Peru. Upon visiting the project site in May 2009, we realized that while the current school provided opportunity to students through primary school, only 30 percent of these students would later attend secondary institutions. The primary barriers in access to secondary education are twofold: enrollment fees and transportation costs into the city. Our club seeks to implement the program in a sustainable way that heavily emphasizes points on community involvement, scholarship based on merit, and local dependence and benefit.
Richa Taneja, College of Arts and Sciences; Janki Patel, College of Arts and Sciences; Komal Patel, College of Arts and Sciences
Haiti is the neediest country in the Western Hemisphere and has among the lowest potable water availability in the world. Due to abuse of the lands and more recent hurricanes, Haiti’s original forests are approximately 99 percent eliminated. Our Commitment to Action project seeks to mobilize Haitian children and young adults to unite for the protection and restoration of their own natural resources. We will promote this goal through education and volunteerism.
Steven Sloan, College of Engineering; Michael Podolsky, School of Business Administration; Kirk Nuzum, School of Continuing Studies; Harold Gil, College of Arts and Sciences
The Ica Valley region of Peru includes a collection of poverty-stricken communities who rely predominantly on minimally profitable farms for annual income. These villages currently depend on a severely contaminated water source as the predominant supply of their drinking water, bathing water, and irrigation water. Our plan is to continue working in the Ica Valley region of Peru and to implement a sustainable potable water system that will run from a clean intake about eight miles from the villages through buried pipelines to distribute clean drinking water throughout the communities, serving more than 500 people.
Shoshana Gottesman, Frost School of Music; Tamzid Rahman, School of Nursing and Health Studies; Farah Dosani, School of Communication
Our commitment to action is to “bridge the divide” between Jews and Muslims by means of dialogue, forums, social events, monetary donations, and community service. Our main focus is based on the student population of the University of Miami, with a growing commitment to our immediate external Jewish-Muslim communities, as well as joint Israeli/Israeli-Arab and Palestinian communities in Israel.
Kristina Rosales, College of Arts and Sciences; Austin Webbert, College of Arts and Sciences; Arielle Duperval, College of Arts and Sciences; Lissette Miller, College of Arts and Sciences
Our mission is to create a network of youth community centers in Site Soley, Port-au-Prince. The youth centers will offer access to educational opportunities, a safe youth community space for reflections and cooperative initiatives, a multipurpose cultural space, and a place to facilitate local exchanges across divided territories and intercultural exchanges with US, Haitian, Dominican, and other Latin American university students. In building this network of youth community centers, we hope to stimulate local and national community reintegration, non-violent conflict transformation, and civic engagement.