Area leaders discuss fighting disease worldwide

The Wang Center for International Programs tackled the issue of global health at the symposium, “Advances in Global Health by Non-Governmental Organizations,” in February 2008.

As the name suggests, the two-day event highlighted the work of non-governmental organizations currently searching for global solutions to control disease in developing nations. These organizations, many from the Pacific Northwest, are stepping up to meet a need where governments cannot or have not.

Stephen Lewis, the former United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, delivered the keynote address, “Time to Deliver: Winning the Battle Against Poverty and Disease in the Developing World” at the Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center.

Lewis is currently the chair of the board of the Stephen Lewis Foundation in Canada, which works to ease the pain of HIV/AIDS in Africa at the grassroots level, and he is a professor in global health in the Faculty of Social Sciences at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He is a senior advisor to the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York and co-director of AIDS-Free World.

Symposium presentations and seminars moved to campus following his opening address. Representatives of NGOs and area leaders in science and business discussed their involvement in finding and delivering solutions – from active on-site intervention to benchmark research and the formulation of public policy.

Those who gave presentations included:

• Brad Berg, a full-time pediatrician in Mount Vernon, Wash., and co-founder of the nonprofit Fight for the Children
• Steve Deem, an environmental health engineer for the Washington State Department of Health
• Zoey Dering ’93, nurse and commissioned officer with the U.S. Public Health Service
• Joe DiCarlo, director of emergency relief at Medical Teams International
• Brent Hample ’86, chief executive officer of India Partners
• Veronica Esteban Hernandez, representative from PROSA (Promotores de Salud en Defensa de la Vida del Pueblo), providing healthcare in remote areas of Oaxaca, Mexico
• Scott Jackson, vice president of the external relations team at the international nonprofit PATH
• Carol Koller, with 27 years of fund raising and development leadership experience, she is presently with Medical Teams International
• Lindsay Leeder, family nurse practitioner, Krista Colleague and former Jesuit Volunteer Corps member
• Connie McCloud, who has worked for the Puyallup Tribe and Puyallup Tribal Health Authority for more than 35 years
• Joyce Millen, anthropology professor at Willamette University and a medical anthropologist
• Kathryn Morgan, executive director of Fight for the Children
• Tom Paulsen ’81, science and medical reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
• Anne Peterson, public health physician
• U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, a Democratic from Washington’s 9th District
• Michelle Williams, epidemiology professor at the University of Washington’s School of Public Health and Community Medicine

More information about the speakers is available here.

Prior to the two-day event, the Wang Center hosted a film series about global health. The films included “A Closer Walk” and highlights from the six-hour “Rx for Survival” series.

This is the third in a series of symposia sponsored by the Wang Center and PLU. It follows “China: Bridges for a New Century” in 2003, and “Pathways to Peace: Norway’s Approach to Democracy and Development” in 2005.

For more information contact wangcntr@plu.edu or call 253-535-7577.