The Global Brigades is the largest student-led organization in the world, with more than 12,000 volunteers. Global Brigades mobilizes thousands of students through nine skill-based programs, which help to improve the quality of life in resource-starved communities. The mission of the organization is “to empower volunteers to facilitate sustainable solutions in under-resourced communities while fostering local cultures.”
With 2,870 likes on Facebook, it’s no surprise the organization has more than 250 chapters, including the one here at UT. Last year a UT student, Carolina Remos, started a Global Public Health Brigades chapter on campus. Currently, the chapter has 14 members.
Global Brigades focuses on serving Honduras, Panama, and Ghana. UT’s chapter visited Honduras, in the community of Zurzular. “It’s really what you would imagine, like what you read in history books from centuries ago,” Remos said in response to the community’s poor living conditions. The houses in the Zurzular are shacks. The families sleep in small homes with adobe flooring, and lack amenities that many people take for granted, such as a bathrooms or running water.
Remos said that the main goal of the Global Public Health Brigades trips is to help underprivileged families build a life focused around disease prevention and sustainability. Some projects that are offered to families of these communities include replacing latrines, switching disease-filled adobe flooring to a cement alternative, cleaning water systems for laundry and drinking, and preventing respiratory illnesses through eco-stoves.
The community of Zurzular has 120 households. 90 of these households decided to take part in the Global Public Health Brigades.
Twenty percent of the cost for these projects is paid for by the families that take part in the program. The other 80 percent is paid for by the Global Public Health Brigades. Of the 90 homes that took part in the program, UT students helped two of these households, and all four of the program’s sustainability projects were completed. “These people basically wake up one day and they live in an adobe shack, and four days later they have all these amenities that they never dreamed of before,” Remos said.
She also said UT’s Global Public Health Brigades chapter hopes to grow to 25 members this year, the organization’s maximum allowance.
Remos wants the organization to grow as a whole. Though there are nine areas of Global Brigades, UT only takes advantage of the Global Public Health Brigades chapter. She said they hope to expand into the Business, Medical, Micro-Finance, and Environment Brigades. The goal is to make Global Brigades into UT’s largest student organization.
Students don’t need to be a specific major in order to join the Brigades; anyone is welcome to join.
Opportunities like the Brigades are rare, said Remos, because the students who go on these trips make a direct impact in third-world communities and come away with unforgettable experiences.
Lily Gutierrez is the secretary of the Global Public Health Brigades chapter at UT. According to her, what makes the Brigades different from others like it is that it teaches third-world communities about sustainability. The organization does not simply give the communities gifts. Rather, it gives information about hygiene and disease prevention that will last for generations.
The Global Brigades is “basically teaching values to other people and we’re taking back values as well, like hospitality and respect for one another, even though the language is completely different,” Gutierrez said. She works to keep members informed of fundraising activities and to answer questions. She also keeps close contact with possible fundraising outlets to ensure the chapter has an opportunity to raise money for the Brigade trips.
Any students interested in joining UT’s Global Brigades can email Carolina Remos at carolina.remos@globalbrigades.org or visit http://www.globalbrigades.org.
Kelly St.Onge can be reached at kst.onge@spartans.ut.edu
Enjoyed reading this article. Important point made. We need to be more helpful and get involved.
Good to see people doing good for others. Not enough of that going around.