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Through the groundwork laid by our Howard Hughes
award, we were able to successfully obtain a 3000 by 2000 grant
from the Robert Wood Johnson foundation in April 2000. This HPPI
grant has allowed us to expand our work with Booker T. Washington
High School to include a year-round academic enrichment program
for students, job shadowing, health fairs, and an extensive evaluation
component.
The most effective and pivotal part of
our HPPI project is offering Health and Human Services Academy students
the opportunity to work in a real-life hospital setting. This has
been indispensable in bringing learning alive for the students and
sparking their curiosity and interest in science, technology and
health care. Internships and job shadowing experiences are essential
to the students' overall growth by taking learning out of the classroom,
out of the abstract and giving it a human face. By far this is the
most successful element of our project. Of the 13 students who participated
in the first shadowing program in the spring of 2000, five are now
working in the health field or taking courses in this area. Students
agreed that job shadowing helped them better explore career options.
In the summer of 2001, 10 HHSA students took part in paid internships
in hospitals and private medical practices through out Atlanta.
Our partners at Morehouse Public Health Sciences Institute have
been indispensable in helping to introduce students to public health.
They have recruited speakers from the Atlanta public health community,
such as the Centers for Disease Control, to speak with students
about public health careers and the public health threats faced
by the African-American community. Also, AUC students created public
health posters on topics such as smoking and violence for display
during a health fair we conducted at Kennedy Middle School. Kennedy
Middle School is one of Booker T. Washington High School's main
feeder schools. We are expanding our HPPI project to work more closely
with the teachers and students at this school. Already we held a
health fair that was staffed by nursing students from Emory's School
of Nursing and BTWHS Health & Human Services Academy students. We
are recruiting 15 students from Kennedy, five each from the 6th
through 8th grades to be part of a health professions/science cohort.
15 students will also be identified from the 9th through 11th grade
at BTWHS. These students will be matched with mentors from the Emory
community and from our partners, the Boys and Girls Club and 100
Black Men of DeKalb County. Year-round fun and learning activities
will be planned for students and mentors to help them build relationships
and to explore careers in the health profession.
In the summer of 2001 we sponsored these students in summer science
camps being conducted by the Health Science Guides program and the
Office of Minority Affairs, Emory University School of Medicine.
This program is mutually beneficial for schools and the Emory community
as it will show students the relevance of science to on-going research
and give the Emory community a chance to connect with the greater
Atlanta community.
For additional information please contact
Ms. Kimberly Parker
Phone: (404) 727-4232
email: kparke4@learnlink.emory.edu
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