IOWC Student Assistants
Jesse Jenkinson
Jesse, a recent graduate of McGill University with a BA in International Development and African Studies, is in the process of applying for an MA program in Health, Community and Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is interested in researching the relationship between community empowerment and healthcare program effectiveness: why some programs work and others do not; how increased effectiveness can be standardized. She will also look at the benefits of incorporating indigenous dialogue in the discussion of health care provision. More recently, she has written a paper on “African attitudes towards health and healing in Central Africa: redefining terms and restructuring understanding of African healing systems to engage in ethical discussion”.
With a long-held interest in travel, visiting ten countries and living in three of them, Jesse volunteered with Save A Child’s Heart in 2004, an Israeli-based organization that provides life-saving heart surgeries for children in developing countries suffering from congenital heart problems: Congo, Russia, Tanzania, China, Jordan, Rwanda, Ethiopia. Returning to complete her undergraduate studies, she narrowed her interest on health in Africa and was accepted on the Canadian Field Studies In Africa Program for Winter 2007. Extending her trip, she moved to Masaera village, on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. There she was an assistant to International Development Project Implementation Consultant, Canute Temu. She assessed water management problems; aided in developing the secondary education system in the village; worked on locating a market for locally-grown organic vanilla and cardamom; and began projects aimed at water system reparation; HIV/AIDS secular information intervention; and raising funding for local secondary school infrastructures.
Her experiences in Israel and Africa brought on more involvement with McGill’s efforts in Africa. She is Co-President of McGill In Africa, a student organization focused on raising funds for projects concerning health and education in East Africa; the student liaison for the Kibale Health Centre and Conservation Project; a student assistant with the FIOWC; also, the head of many fundraising initiatives to build a health centre in Uganda, having recently organized a benefit dinner. As part of the project, she will travel in January to Uganda to help facilitate the stakeholders and community meetings regarding the health centre. She will also conduct research about community members’ health needs, how they would like their new health centre to function and what roles they can play in facilitating these functions.
