Itching to get started
At the beginning of her fellowship with Global Health Corps (GHC), Zambian native Angel Chelwa felt excited … and itchy.
She’d spent two weeks at GHC’s fellowship training at Yale University, and while her feelings of agitation weren’t technically physical, they may as well have been. “I’d spent two weeks surrounded by the most amazing people, and their collective awesomeness had been infectious,” says Chelwa, who had recently graduated from Zambia University with a degree in sociology when she entered her GHC fellowship year in 2014. “I was itching to get started and make my mark, knowing that so many great people had my back.”
Chelwa was feeling a sentiment that could be considered the GHC “special sauce”: a fired-up, empowered human energy that sparks a new way of approaching global health.
The training ground
Every year, a cohort of under 30-year-old college graduates like Chelwa are recruited and selected by GHC to work with 63 health-focused partner programs in Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, the United States and Zambia.
Two fellows are assigned to each project, one who calls that country home, and one from outside the country. It’s a learning experience on multiple levels – not only are fellows actively working to improve outcomes for issues ranging from maternal and infant health to the Ebola crisis, but they’re also living and working with co-fellows who represent diverse backgrounds.