Sean Byrne, Sid Dante, and Sean McKenna at the dedication of a greenhouse behind the secondary school in Pampas Grande, Peru.
Three years into our existence as the Richmond Global Health Alliance, it is worth reviewing our
original mission statement and principles.
Each was written with specific intentions, and this blog post will not
only explain our initial thoughts but serve as a review of our initial
principles as we embark on a strategic planning process led by Mary Grace
Apostoli.
Mission Statement:
To support,
financially and logistically, the global health and international service
efforts by faculty, students and alumni of the University of Richmond and
Virginia Commonwealth University.
We opted for a broad mission statement when we started for
myriad reasons. First, we had built a
successful team through our return visits to Pampas Grande, Peru but we know
that our team was special and could do more.
By not tying our mission specifically to Peru, we allowed ourselves the
ability to build and grow even though organizationally we knew we were
committed to our work in Pampas Grande for the near future. Second, one of the roadblocks and
frustrations we faced when we started was finding non-profit and administrative
support for our project as it transformed from a experiential undergraduate
trip to a global health mission. As we
grow, we hope to be available to other groups and projects that are
establishing and help them while also learning from their experiences and
results. Finally, we bridge the City of
Richmond as one of the few projects that involves the campuses of both VCU and
U of R and we wish to further cement our relationship with both schools.
Principles:
We are committed in assisting those
currently engaged in global health and in encouraging the development of the
next generation of global health leaders.
We will involve participants of all experience levels and work to
recruit those new to aid, development, and international efforts.
The first part of this principle builds on our hope and goal
to eventually be able to support other groups and projects. However, the second part is why this
principle is listed first. Our project
from its inception involved students and was the result of a group of students
wishing to help. As our group has become
more professional and increased our capabilities, we have kept students as
central to our leadership. There are
multiple opportunities for mentored work and we have two student positions on
our Board of Directors designed to offer a practical experience. Moreover, recruiting both students and those
new to aid, development and international efforts not only provides a valuable
and novel education experience to those participants but also helps our
group. In areas where those of us who
have returned to Pampas for many years may have made excuses for our failure to
meet challenges or provide services, those new to aid and to our project bring
a fresh perspective. This leads to new
ideas or novel suggestions, but more often it is their enthusiasm that is
infectious and keeps those of us in leadership motivated.
We desire diversity in thought, ideas and
action. We will not discriminate based
on sex, race, religion, creed, or sexual orientation when selecting our
partners in global health. We will not
have discriminatory preconditions for our services nor will we engage in proselytizing
during our work.
Our non-discriminatory statement is standard and broad but
it is fundamentally important to us to have many different views and
thoughts. This leads to creative ways to
solve problems and different approaches to the same conflict. But it not only lets our projects to succeed,
it allows us to learn from the other strengths.
In our leadership team we have included physicians and lawyers – two
groups that are often portrayed as antagonistic, but in our work we have seen
the fruits of collaboration due to different areas of expertise. In the last part of this principle is a
commitment that we will seek to help all and avoid preconditions to our
service. We do not have expectations of
those who we try to help. We will not
expect them to sign on to our belief system or meet our cultural norms. This is important – we are foreigners and
outsiders where we work and we embrace the idea that our educational experience
outweighs the services we provide. As
outsiders, we will try and learn from those we serve and allow them to learn
from us.
We believe in the dignity of all human
beings. We will present our work
realistically, avoid exploitative imagery and advertising, and maintain an
appropriate standard of care across all our activities. We will seek to strengthen communities with
sustainable solutions and not burden them with frivolous requirements.
Our goal is to serve but we must respect those we
serve. Images of children are often used
to tweak heart strings and increase fundraising, but these images can be exploitative
if staged or designed to highlight aspects of poverty. Additionally, this means maintaining the
privacy of our patients and avoiding photography in clinic even if it means
that showcasing our work with patients becomes more difficult. This also is central to our teaching. We discuss photography and the perils of
disaster tourism with our students and ask them to consider their social media
posts. Their trip is not help or save but is instead to learn.
Maintaining a reasonable standard of care is difficult on
mission trips but there are areas and approaches we must take to meet
that. Though there are limitations to
the care we can provide due to the medications or technology available, where
we can, we must seek to provide the same quality care that we provide to
patients in the United States. This means that we must aspire to higher quality
care and seek to expand our capabilities every year. This can come in the form
of refusing donations of well-intentioned but expired medications. However, at
times we may use medications that have an expiration date if our research shows
that there is no harm. Our basic
principle is that we would never offer or provide any care that we would not do
in the United States. If a medication or
piece of equipment that is expired is something I would prescribe to a family
member because the expiration date is arbitrarily placed by the local pharmacy
(as is common on all prescriptions) or on equipment that is structurally safe,
then we will use it. However even if it’s
the “best” that is offered, we must strive for more. This means more of my time spent fundraising
to buy quality medications and equipment rather than accepting cast-off
donations.
We value
the hard work of our volunteers and donors and the needs of those whom we
serve. We will strive to have minimal
overhead to our work, a longitudinal commitment to the people and areas where
we work, and an open and inviting culture to all our volunteers and supporters.
This is an organizational principle that has only
strengthened as our programming has grown.
Thus far, we are volunteers with professionals and students and the
majority of our fundraising comes from our family and friends. As we continue, we may be able to attract
additional sources of funding but we must do it in a responsible manner. Expansion of our programs or missions will be
based on need and not based on our desire to travel more. This requires us to commit to our projects
not only during our mission trip but also throughout the year. We build projects with many years in mind but
also seek to do it in a way that builds the capacity of the town. Finally, we have to recognize that we will
not always succeed. Having a multi-year
commitment allows us to fail but also gives us the ability to change. To do so, we have to have a culture that
allows open and honest discussion and include all in our decision-making
process. We have a board but all of our meetings are open and everyone is
invited. In fact, we invite all new
volunteers or interested supporters to our meetings to see how we work and to
actively participate.
We recognize our limits in time, ability and
ideas. We will seek collaborations with
other groups, learn from the successes and failures of previous projects, and
seek oversight and guidance. We will
regularly debrief our efforts and submit to critical reviews from our partners
and experts.
Finally, we end with an expression intended to demonstrate
humility. We may be led by professionals
such as doctors, lawyers and pharmacists and our short time has allowed us to
develop some small measure of expertise in our work, but we know that much of
what we are trying to enact has been done before. Our goal is not to go it alone or build our
organization but to learn and do our best.
This also means that we have to regularly review our own work and
debrief and it means that periodically we have to revisit our mission and
goals.
Vision:
We envision a stable,
adaptable and supportive organization that will provide a longitudinal
commitment to sustainable projects in international communities.
Our vision follows above.
We seek to be stable so our commitment is long-term, try to be adaptable
so that we recognize our successes and failures and work to be supportive in
not only our service but also to our volunteers and students. Being such an organization means that we can
meet the objective of sustainability.
Reading and reviewing this mission statement, I continue to
be excited for our strategic planning process.
But looking back at our mission statement and our efforts since our
founding in 2011 is that we do meet each of this principles as we try to
achieve our vision. As a young group, we
still have much to do to see if we become the organization we wish to be, but I
believe we can and will.
-Sid Dante
Sid Dante is a graduate of VCU School of Medicine and is now in his second year of residency at the University of Chicago. Sid has been traveling to Pampas Grande since 2010 and is a member of the RGHA board.
