May 08, 2009
Chinyere Alu
Master’s student, maternal and child health, with global health certificate, 2008-present
Peace Corps volunteer, Malawi, 2005-2007


Nigerian-born Chinyere Alu came to the U.S. with her family at age 11. As a high school student, she loved running, and she had begun to think that a career in physical therapy might be a good match for her. It wasn’t until years later, in the Peace Corps, that she realized she would rather focus on prevention than treatment.

At The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Alu majored in English and community health. Because she had worked on health issues with underprivileged populations in the U.S., she was accepted as a health volunteer in the Peace Corps. The work with disadvantaged Americans, however, in no way prepared her for her service in Malawi.

Alu held a leadership position, carrying out objectives under the Ministry of Health in four of the 30 villages in her geographical area.

She felt particularly useful, she says, facilitating a water project that involved the installation of a borehole. The health center, which served an area that included 30,000 people, did not have a reliable water supply, and the villages immediately surrounding the health center did not have access to clean, reliable water.

Alu (center) poses with village leaders in Malawi.

Alu (center) poses with village leaders in Malawi.

Although there were some taps in the vicinity, there were many times when the water did not run for three or four days at a time. Women and children would make the long walk to a small stream to collect water that wasn’t safe to drink.

Alu held health sessions with women who lived in the area, leading them in discussions about family planning and nutrition, for instance. She worked with village committees to help children in the area, many of whom had been orphaned by AIDS.

Working with the community was difficult but fulfilling, she says. She remembers one particular woman who was HIV-positive and terrified that her baby would be born with the virus. The antiretroviral therapy the mother was on helped prevent her from passing the virus to her baby at birth.

“The frustrating part is that these successes aren’t easily sustainable,” she said. “It is much better to be able to prevent HIV infection.”

Alu’s service in the Peace Corps made her appreciate that “this is the power public health professionals have — to make change in the world. This is what they do every day. This is rewarding.”

Working with community members whose lives of poverty were compounded by health challenges like HIV/AIDS made her realize she needed to gain more skills and knowledge to do any further work in her chosen career field.

Alu is now in the first year of the UNC master’s program in maternal and child health and is working toward a global health certificate. She hopes to work on reproductive health issues and capacity building, focusing on sub-Saharan Africa.

Because she believes so strongly in the value of the Peace Corps, Alu also works as a UNC campus recruiter. Her job is to promote the program, reaching out especially to those with skills in agriculture, business and development, and environmental sciences, as well as in health and education. She interviews applicants — seeking out those who are mature, stable and culturally sensitive — and nominates them for Peace Corps service.

“Among other things, the Peace Corps experience gave me courage and confidence,” Alu says. “I was well respected. The people with whom I worked had high expectations of me. It was humbling — at age 22, I couldn’t have had that level of responsibility anywhere else. I often had to tell them, ‘I can’t,’ but they believed in me and said I could. They inspired and motivated me.

View more photographs of Chinyere Alu’s Peace Corps experience on Flickr.
See other videos about the Peace Corps / public health connection at YouTube.

Join our Peace Corps discussion on LinkedIn.

 


Carolina Public Health is a publication of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health. To view previous issues, please visit www.sph.unc.edu/cph.

 

 

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