ASPAT-PERU
Summer 2017, GlobeMed UChicago officially graduated our partner of 7 years, ASPAT-Peru. We had the privilege of working with ASPAT on a number of projects and initiatives, using the skills of our individual teams to best support ASPAT in reaching their goals, and had amazing experiences with ASPAT sending our members to Peru on GROW trips. GlobeMed UChicago is proud to have raised over $50,000 in campaigns and secured $120,000 in grants for ASPAT-Peru over the course of our partnership.
About ASPAT-Peru
Asociación de Personas Afectadas por Tuberculosis del Perú (ASPAT) was founded in 2007. It is located in Callao, but their reach extends to all areas of the Lima Metropolitan Area with the highest incidence of tuberculosis (TB). ASPAT’s work focuses on improving the quality of life of persons affected by TB through initiatives that educate and empower patients, promote their rights, and secure resources for the development of their abilities and social well-being. ASPAT strives to combat the stigma surrounding TB through psycho-emotional education of patients, their caretakers, health center staff, and government officials to work towards combating stigma and providing more holistic support for the TB patient community. Ultimately, ASPAT is working towards the elimination of stigma surrounding TB and the improvement of public healthcare quality in Peru. Comprised solely of volunteers formerly affected by TB, ASPAT has helped to serve over 1,500 TB patients throughout the Lima Metropolitan area to date.
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Mission: To contribute to improving the quality of life of individuals affected by tuberculosis by securing the development of their abilities and social well-being, especially those who are socially and economically disadvantaged.
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Vision: A world without Tuberculosis
In September 2016, our chapter sent five members to spend four weeks working with our global partner ASPAT-Peru on our annual Grassroots On-site Work (GROW) Internship. The ultimate goal of every GlobeMed partnership is to facilitate the partner organization’s growth to the point of self-sustainability, where they are no longer in need of the chapter’s funding or direct team support. Check out this video to learn more about our global partner, ASPAT-Peru.
2016 GROW Trip
PROJECTS
Desayunos
An initiative lasting six months that provided breakfast to about thirty patients, six days a week, at the Lima health center, Centro San Sebastian. The aim of the Desayunos project was to incentivize patients to consistently go to the health center to receive their treatment, to reduce the harsh effects of the treatment, to improve the nutrition and immune systems of the patients, and to provide a community of TB patients in which they can find psycho-social support.
Nutritional Baskets
A program that provided nutritional baskets to patients. As TB is a debilitating disease and patients are often unable to work, patients and their families often go hungry, only making it more difficult for patients to recover. The nutritional baskets helped ensure that patients received adequate nutrition to help them recover from TB.
eCompliance
An electronic monitoring system created to increase TB treatment compliance rates and therefore prevent multidrug resistant TB. A patient confirms that they have received their treatment through scanning their fingerprint and if they fail to do so, healthcare providers will be informed.
Entreprenurial Bootcamp
A program in which business plans created by TB patients were selected to be funded. By funding their business ideas, we hope to assist TB patients in escaping the social stigma and poverty associated with TB in Peru.
HOPE WORKS
Summer 2018, GlobeMed UChicago officially graduated our partner of 2 years, Hope Works. We had the privilege of working with Hope Works on a number of projects and initiatives. The partnership between Hope Works and GlobeMed at the University of Chicago represented a new direction for the chapter. It built off previous work GlobeMed has done in grant writing and consulting as well as expands opportunities within the chapter to engage with the surrounding community.
Hope Works, our local partner since Fall 2016, is a community organization on the South Side of Chicago that is focused on finding long-term solutions to endemic community problems. As they say, “Our mission is to empower our neighbors to become catalysts of and participants in a flourishing Southside Chicago community.” Hope Works meets one-on-one with their clients to help them not only find jobs, but confront underlying problems in their lives. The organization helps link clients to employment services, health care, housing opportunities and other needed resources. These personal consultations represent only part of the wonderful work Hope Works is doing in the community- other services include life and employment skills workshops (i.e. resume writing) and arts outreach programs for high school students.
Find out more at their website.
