Carolina Center for Public Service - Public Service and Engagement at Carolina

2008 UNC Entrepreneurial Public Service Fellows

Andrew Chen, a first-year medical student, will work the Collaborative Sahsa Health Initiative, a project that aims to assess the household health needs in the Sahsa area of Nicaragua, an isolated and underserved region that suffered greatly from Hurricane Felix in 2007. The project will place emphasis on lessening the burden of diarrheal diseases and will complement efforts of the University of Nicaragua, Leon (UNAN), to build the health capacity of the local community. Andrew will work with a team of UNC and UNAN medical students to conduct a household-level, basic health needs assessment and a diarrheal disease assessment. Using Geographic Information System technology, the collected household data will be integrated into a map that can be used to pinpoint disease and health patterns. The information will serve as a foundation for designing further health interventions in the region.
Area served: Rural Nicaragua
Faculty mentor: Douglas Morgan, MD MPH, School of Medicine, Division of Digestive Diseases
Community partner: Rodolpho Pena, MD DrPH, Dean of the Medical School, University of Nicaragua, Leon

Scott Ickes, a doctoral student in Nutrition at the School of Public Health, will support the development of local production sites of Ready-to-Use-Therapeutic-Food (RUTF) for the treatment of malnutrition in the Bundibugyo region of western Uganda. RUTF, a dietary supplement composed of peanuts, dairy products, vitamins, and minerals, effectively prevents and promotes recovery from malnutrition. Since transporting goods to the remote region of Bundibugyo is difficult and expensive, local production of RUTF is especially critical. To promote healthy growth and recovery among moderately malnourished children, Scott will perform a productivity and cost analysis of two methods for local RUTF production; analyze the supply chain and production need for RUTF; and establish standards for approved local production sites to aid the implementation and scaling of RUTF production.
Area served: Bundibugyo, Uganda (Western Uganda)
Faculty mentor: Alice Ammerman, Professor, Department of Nutrition; Director, UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention
Community Partner: Jennifer Myhre, Senior Nutrition Program Officer, World Harvest Mission

Sam Wurzelmann, a sophomore majoring in Environmental Health, will spend over two months providing assistance at the San Miguel del Bala Ecotourism Lodge run by the Tacana Indian indigenous community in Bolivia. With his EPS Fellowship funds, he will install a solar power system to replace the lodge’s use of a gasoline-powered generator for electricity. The loud noise from the generator disturbs guests and scares away wildlife. Sam will organize Tacana volunteers to provide manual labor to give them a sense of ownership in the project. Over the summer, Sam will also lead English classes for the Tacana tour guides, focusing on topics that will be useful in leading excursions into the area rainforests, such a first aid, forest safety, and conversational English. Sam will also conduct a needs assessment of the lodge’s operations and plan additional projects based on the assessment findings.
Area served: San Miguel del Bala, Bolivia
Faculty mentor: Michael “Raúl” Brown, Lecturer, Romance Languages and Literatures
Community Partner: Constantino Nay, San Miguel del Bala Ecotourism Community
Visit Sam's bolg to track his progress.