The YES Alumni Community Health webinar took place on July 25, 2016, and featured Joyce Kilikpo Jarwolo and YES alumnus Ashfaq Hussain. Joyce is the Founder and Executive Director of Public Health Initiative Liberia (PHIL), a national public health organization that works to improve and increase access to quality health care for Liberians. PHIL works with communities to educate and empower them to protect themselves and their families, and played a major role in helping Liberia manage the Ebola crisis. In addition to starting PHIL, Joyce was also a 2015 Mandela Washington Fellow, which is a fellowship started by Barack Obama for young African leaders. She has also worked in many capacities within community health, including as the Senior Malaria Officer and Health Coordinator at the Liberian Red Cross and the Health Delegate (advisor) at the Norwegian Red Cross in Haiti.

During the webinar, Joyce used her vast experience in community health to give alumni ideas for different ways they can help their communities. In addition to that, YES alumnus Ashfaq Hussain (YES 2014-2015, hosted by PAX in Blair, WI) shared about the three community health projects this year. Since returning home from the U.S. in 2015, Ashfaq has worked with other YES alumni and medical professionals to bring health services to people living in rural Pakistan. During each of the three Medical Camps he has implemented, Ashfaq and his team gave free check-ups to people who live in remote areas and generally do not receive health care. After their check-ups, the patients who needed it also received free medicine from the Medical Camp team. Ashfaq gave step-by-step instructions on how he organized and ran the camps so that other alumni can organize similar projects in their home communities.

Even if you missed the webinar, you can still learn from this expert panel by watching the recording on YouTube or Vimeo. You can also see their presentations on the YES Alumni Resources page!