SPH: Why did you apply to be the Boston Foundation Activist Fellow?

When I first came to BU, I went to the open house, and I was captivated by Dean Galea and all the other deans who shared their stories about their work in public health. The fellowships and opportunities to get involved in the surrounding Boston area that the Activist Lab offered were a big part of why I chose to come here. They provided all of these different opportunities to enrich your learning and address local problems in Boston. I am from Brooklyn, and therefore I understand the issues in my community specifically, but I didn’t know anything about this area. It was a great way to get involved, and it was a necessary learning experience to understand the nuances specific to my new surroundings. My goal was always to take what I learned here and bring it back to my community, and this seemed like the best way to do that. There are so many communities that look like mine here, and I just wanted the opportunity to do that work here too. This fellowship also seemed like a great way to have direct communication with community members, and working with communities is really important to me.

SPH: Why is this project important? How does it impact health?

This year, I worked with the community committee to figure out what and where the issues were in the public housing community and what we could do to help. We found that many concerns surrounded COVID-19 safety, education, and isolation due to the pandemic. My role was to conduct a lot of resource-building and research on the COVID-19 initiatives which were already going on across Boston that we could build upon or imitate. The committee as a whole ended up focusing on vaccine education and resource sharing because of the timeline surrounding COVID and vaccine rollout. We realized that other groups, such as the BU Covid Corps, which was developed by faculty in the Department of Epidemiology, were looking to do the same kind of work. Eventually, we were able to combine our efforts and work with them to administer surveys to community advisory groups that work with the Boston Housing Authority. This was how we were able to better understand people’s concerns with vaccines and safety in Boston Housing Authority buildings. 

From there, I helped create a document of all resources on how to get vaccines, access to free transportation to get folks to vaccine sites, and so on. I was able to work with SPH students from the COVID Corps (Nisha Purvi, Tamanna Syed, and Kerra Washington), and created beautiful infographics that we then mailed to over 9,000 residents in Boston through the Boston Housing Authority. The hope was that those infographics would educate and encourage more folks to get vaccinated. 

It was great working with so many different local organizations, such as the Boston Housing Authority and the Boston Public Health Commission. It was inspiring to see how we took this project from a nine-person community committee and made it into something that was able to reach thousands of families by working with other groups. I truly did not think we would have that big of a reach, but it just shows you the power of community advocacy and what folks can do when they have access to essential resources.

Many of the people I worked with during this fellowship have been doing advocacy work within their housing developments for over twenty years, they know the residents by name. I thought a lot about how these are the voices that need to be heard. These are the people that we need to be talking about. I think sometimes in academia, we get so focused on people doing research, but what about the folks on the ground doing the work? It was great to be inspired by community members who endlessly show love for their community and work to better educate those around them. It was such a great experience overall, and it was inspiring to say the least.

SPH: What did you learn from this experience?

A big thing that I learned is that as public health professionals, we really do need to take a step back and allow communities to make these important, necessary changes. You don’t need a degree to advocate for yourself or your community. It was clear as day to me that these folks were doing it. Yeah, maybe they got a little help from us and our grant, but they had it- they had the ideas, they were driving for change, they knew the root of these issues, and they knew how to get where they wanted to go. They just needed a little bit of support. I know that even beyond this fellowship and the little bit of help we were able to provide, these advocates are still going to be doing that work. Public health practitioners need to figure out ways to get more involved in advocacy and storytelling because folks can and do come up with these inspiring ideas based on stories about real-life struggles they have had, especially during a pandemic. They came up with what changes they wanted to see, how they wanted to be role models, and how they wanted to keep each other safe.

SPH: What advice would you give to future Activist Fellows?

Be committed to the project, and to seeing the change in a community or the betterment of a situation. At some points, it felt like I didn’t know where this was going to go because everything in the world surrounding COVID was changing, and we had to adapt.

Be flexible, understanding, creative, and don’t lose hope in seeing the project come to fruition.

SPH: Where do you see yourself next?

I am working as a consultant for a healthcare company based in New York City that works to increase healthcare access for historically under-supported communities in the city. I also help health organizations provide more crucial services for their clients. Being able to do the work that I came to BU to do is pretty great. I feel as though I am doing work that will help increase access to underserved communities that look like mine.

Before this experience, I never thought I was qualified to serve folks as a public health advocate, and now I see myself continuing down this path. I can see myself working in health policy. If we can change policy, we can be affecting so many people’s lives. There are so many pieces of this puzzle that make up health for all, and I want to contribute to figuring it out.