{"id":114404,"date":"2017-10-26T09:00:41","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T13:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/?p=114404"},"modified":"2020-09-17T10:24:33","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T14:24:33","slug":"where-we-were-where-we-are-where-were-going","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/news\/articles\/2017\/where-we-were-where-we-are-where-were-going\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Where We Were, Where We Are, Where We\u2019re Going\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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October 26, 2017<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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\"BUSPH<\/a>
Paola Sepulveda-Miranda<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMy grandpa always says, \u2018Late justice isn\u2019t justice at all,\u2019\u201d student Paola Sepulveda-Miranda told an audience of 50 at the second annual BUSPH Stories event, titled \u201cWhere We Were, Where We Are, Where We\u2019re Going,\u201d on October 20.<\/p>\n

Sepulveda-Miranda, a lawyer by training who comes from Puerto Rico, was one of seven students who told stories about how they came to public health, and what issues continue to motivate them, at the event hosted by the SPH Student Senate<\/a> and Graduate Student Life. The event was free, with donations at the door for One America Appeal<\/a>\u2019s hurricane recovery efforts in Puerto Rico, Texas, Florida, and the US Virgin Islands.<\/p>\n

Catherine Bernards described her practicum in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she worked at North America\u2019s first safe injection site. One day, she said, someone came running out of an alley near the site, looking for help, and she followed him back to his friend, who had overdosed.<\/p>\n

Bernards carries the overdose-reversing medicine naloxone\u2014also known by the brand name Narcan\u2014and held up her kit while telling her story. When she bought her first kit, in Boston, she said the pharmacist didn\u2019t ask any questions, but also didn\u2019t give any instruction. \u201cI realized, even if I knew how to identify an overdose, I wouldn\u2019t know how to use naloxone,\u201d Bernards said.<\/p>\n

She had undergone a training in Vancouver, however, and was able to save that person\u2019s life. If she had never gotten trained, she said, and just had naloxone, \u201cthe outcome could have been very different.\u201d Making the 5- or 10-minute training more widely available\u2014as it is now in Vancouver\u2014could make that difference for so many more people, Bernards concluded.<\/p>\n

\"BUSPH<\/a>
Alex Gitungano<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alex Gitungano shared the story of how he came to Boston from Burundi, a story that was also a two-part Boston Globe <\/em>feature<\/a> in 2015. In, 2014 he agreed to accompany a little boy named Leo Ikoribitangaza, who is now 7 years old and continuing to receive care at Shriners Hospitals for Children in Boston for burns he sustained on his face and head when he was 2.<\/p>\n

\u201cRaising Leo has changed my life,\u201d Gitungano said. He told the story of his own childhood, as a refugee from Burundi\u2019s civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where his family was targeted by violent groups and eventually had to escape, via a wooden boat on Lake Tanganyika, back to Burundi. \u201cWhy did all of this happen to me?\u201d he said he asked growing up, and again when he had first arrived in Boston with Leo and felt overwhelmed and alone.<\/p>\n

Gitungano, a devout Christian, said his faith has given him the strength to take on each challenge, including balancing work on his MPH and raising Leo. As Leo grows up, Gitungano said the boy gives him tremendous hope to help vulnerable people and make positive changes in the lives of others. \u201cThere\u2019s still hope, even when a tree is cut down, for it to sprout again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sepulveda-Miranda described growing up in Puerto Rico and becoming a lawyer, motivated to help fight the disparities that US policy exacerbates in the territory.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter Hurricane Maria changed Puerto Rico forever, I realized just how different Puerto Rican citizenship is from the citizenship of other Americans,\u201d she said. Because many Americans don\u2019t know Puerto Ricans are American citizens, \u201cwe had to use the \u2018we are American citizens\u2019 campaign,\u201d Sepulveda-Miranda said, explaining the sense of injustice such an argument brings up. \u201cAren\u2019t we humans? Don\u2019t we deserve aid, action, and justice regardless?\u201d<\/p>\n

A month after the hurricane, most of the island is still without electricity, and Sepulveda-Miranda said many of her friends and family members are struggling to access clean drinking water\u2014while media coverage moves on, she said, and federal aid continues to be sluggish. \u201cIt is necessary not just to act, but to act on time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI invite you all to act, and to bring justice on time.\u201d<\/p>\n

In one step toward that goal, Olaoluwa Omotowa, president of the Student Senate, announced after the stories that the event had raised $1,350 in donations at the door. Between the event and the month\u2019s SPH apparel sale and student bake sale, students donated a total of $1,500 to One America Appeal<\/a> for hurricane recovery.<\/p>\n

\u2014Michelle Samuels<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At second annual BUSPH Stories event on October 20, students shared public health tales and raised money for those affected by recent hurricanes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10989,"featured_media":114411,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"tags":[2212,2328,2536,2477],"bu-publication":[3516],"sphnews-article-category":[3519,3528,3531,3541],"sphnews-topic":[],"bu_edition":[],"media_type":[],"profile_tax":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/114404"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10989"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114404"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/114404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":173707,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/114404\/revisions\/173707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114404"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=114404"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-article-category?post=114404"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-topic?post=114404"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=114404"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=114404"},{"taxonomy":"profile_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile_tax?post=114404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}