Update: 2013 Trip

This summer, RGHA will launch outreach efforts in Pampas Grande and Cusco, Peru. The RGHA team will travel to Pampas Grande in mid-June, where we will spend a week carrying out our medical and social projects (clinic, pediatrics, women's health, dental, joint pain, emergency medicine, music, art, community health workers, and greenhouse). We will then travel to Cusco, where we will stay at a hostel that supports a local children's clinic. RGHAers will be able to volunteer at the clinic and a nearby orphanage. These new plans (in contrast to our past spring break trips) allow us to spend a longer time in Peru and to extend our outreach to health and social advocacy organizations in Cusco.

Partnerships with VCU School of Medicine's HOMBRE ,University of Richmond professor Dr. Rick Mayes, and the University of Richmond School of Law's Tara Casey have made these plans possible. First, HOMBRE has recruited three first-year medical students and one first-year pharmacy student from VCU to join us on our trip. We hope to provide these students meaningful, hands-on public health learning. Second, the University of Richmond undergraduates' time in Pampas Grande will be supplemented by Dr. Mayes's public health policy class and further volunteer work in Cusco, for which they will receive academic credit. And last, Tara Casey has helped us recruit a law student for social justice efforts in Pampas Grande and Cusco.

We are excited about the plans for the 2013 trip and will continue to work to promote our mission, vision, and goals. More updates to come!

Cusco's Plaza de Armas (photo by Blair Armistead, 2009)