Katie Shaw is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan where she studied Global Environment and Health. This fall, she will be attending Columbia’s School of Public Health to study epidemiology and global health. She is interested in studying HIV/AIDS and how the environment, socioeconomic status, and gender of an individual play strong roles in determining who gets sick.
In this dispatch, Katie thinks about the significance of language and self-love in the process of conducting the module. In her time at LoveLife, Katie was able to find inspiration for her future career in public health and learn more about different ways to engage with communities far and wide. You can watch Katie read the introduction of her dispatch by clicking here.
“You cannot give what you do not have.”
Last week we were fortunate enough to have worked with LoveLife in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, a South African HIV/AIDS prevention program. I have taught the module to many groups of people in the United States but working with other health providers abroad was a wonderful and unique experience. POA is all about family and in the three days we spent teaching and learning from LoveLife our family grew.
What is extraordinary about teaching abroad is allowing each individual to teach back both in English and in their local language. While each participant of this organization easily mastered the module in English, watching them teach the module in their own language was humbling and inspirational. While we did not always understand the words they were speaking, we understood what they were saying. True empowerment and owning knowledge transcend language barriers.
What we have experienced so far is that we have received far more than we have given. I had the great pleasure of working with one of the women who explained to us: “You cannot give what you do not have.” I found this statement to be incredibly relevant to our entire journey in South Africa. We cannot parade into communities we do not belong to and preach ‘love yourself’ without loving ourselves first. We also cannot enter communities and expect them to trust us without first trusting them. Her words were empowering and filled with truth and I will carry them with me for the duration of our travels.
