This past weekend was such a nice break for fun! Friday night I was invited to the Michael Buble concert with friends – it was a great show and even better was laughing and spending time with such a great family. Saturday I had breakfast with some of my oldest friends from growing up and that night had dinner in Raleigh at Sitti (yum Lebanese). Sunday I met grad school friends out in Carrboro to watch the World Cup final – great time but I just wish the Netherlands had won! So all and all, a great weekend spent with so many brilliant friends that I am thankful to have in my life. I am very appreciative of all of the support and happiness they bring to my life so for all of my friends out there who read my blog (and those that don’t), thank you for being so wonderful!
I have two weeks left supporting the Kenya project before taking a much needed vacation and returning to my work with CapacityPlus. All of the sudden time is flying by! While we are waiting for the data to be entered in Nairobi, I’ve been doing a literature review to see what else is “out there” about health worker training and the linkages between all of the parts of the system. Thank goodness for the internet and my experience in doing so much research and paper writing in grad school last year! I just don’t know how people managed without access to so many journals and articles from all over the world. I remember learning the Dewey Decimal System when I was in elementary school and I imagine kids these days are learning how to Google. What will my kids and grandkids be using? We are so fortunate to have so many tools at our fingertips to help further our work. We have to ensure we are expanding technologies to developing countries and using them to strengthen and improve the health workforce. I love reading about innovative ways of doing this and learning about programs that have successfully integrated new approaches using technology. We had a great presentation at work last week about using mobile phones (m-learning) for data collection and health education. This isn’t new but it is expanding in our field. Imagine a world where everyone has a cell phone and everyone has cell phone access. I think that might be in my lifetime!
One last note – I wanted to share with you a wonderful book I am reading called Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. This should be required reading for anyone in public health but there is much to gain for anyone who reads this book. It is a compellation of stories about empowering women and girls, focusing on gender-based violence, sex trafficking and prostitution and maternal mortality. Though these are dire subjects, this well-written book relays true stories with a twinge of hope and optimism for the future. See the link and please read this book!
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