Duke Project HEAL

ive health behaviors. One of our main objectives is to raise funds to send Duke students to Honduran villages over the summer to implement educational and research-focused projects. Programs designed by Project HEALers focus on community research and health education for kids and adults. Each year, we not only develop and maintain a strong working relationship with our Honduran partners, but we also assess community needs and adjust lesson plans based on changing needs and resources. Additionally, partnering with El Centro Hispano, a Durham-based organization that empowers the local Latino community, lets members facilitate our health education activities before going to Honduras. Our local work has strengthened the collaboration between Project HEAL, DGMB, El Centro Hispano, and the Latino community. Continuing our success in gaining funding for our projects, we received one of the $10,000 Davis Projects for Peace grants for our summer of 2011 women’s health initiative, which will feature women’s health discussions, capacity building at the health clinic, a public health campaign, and health education and research programs. Furthermore, this year we have successfully initiated a local health education initiative in collaboration with El Centro Hispano, an organization that supports the Latino community in Durham, and Duke Global Medical Brigades (DGMB), another dPS organization that coordinates annual projects in Honduras. We have also restructured our executive board to better represent our changing goals, including the newly elected Local Outreach Chair, Health Education Coordinator, and Campus Programming Co-Chairs this spring.