Photo by: Jill Hamilton
Seniors Brett Friedman and Joshua Carlson decided this spring break, they want to take a trip down south to somewhere sunny and warm – that is, to Honduras to give medical and dental services to impoverished citizens.
That’s why they started DU Global Medical Brigades, and raised almost $7000 in medical supplies. Oh, and it all started with a dirt bike accident.
Thirty one DU students, joined by local physician and DU dad Mark Elles, will travel with DU Global Medical Brigades to Danli in Southern Honduras from March 18 to 24. Many of the students started individual fundraising for the $1500 trip in September and October, when the group began holding info sessions.
DU Global Medical Brigades is a branch of international non-profit, Global Brigades, the world’s largest student-led global health and sustainable development organization, which plans trips to Honduras, Panama and Ghana.
Honduras is their most established location, where extreme poverty means there are typically no doctors available within a 20 mile radius, 80 percent of people do not have access to a dentist, and 70 percent have no access to public sanitary services.
That’s where Friedman and Carlson come in. Friedman, a BS-BS in molecular biology and biochemistry from Aurora, and Carlson, a biology major with an emphasis in cognitive neuroscience from Hartford, Conn., formed the organization last September. After a slew of marketing for their trip, they hosted info sessions which drew up to 70 people – not including hundreds of emails from interested students.
They based their model on a chapter at CU Boulder, which has been established for six years. They were told first-year branches typically send around six students and raise around $4,000. Leave it to two pre-med students to exceed expectations.
Despite their common interest in global health, Friedman and Carlson are an unlikely pair who have formed a friendship through the trials and successes of planning the trip. But Friedman’s athletic charisma and Carlson’s smooth east-coast manners have come together to create a dream team.
Friedman is a thrill-seeking outdoorsman who runs marathons, and is more than willing to show you his slings and scars – or even his X-rays, which he has ready to pull up on his phone. As it turns out, a volcano dirt-biking trip while backpacking across Central America inspired his new goal to help the people of Honduras.
“We were in Nicaragua, where we were taking dirt-bikes on a volcano island. I crashed my dirt-bike and hurt my foot. I was bleeding everywhere. I had free health care in Nicaragua, just as most of Central America does. However, free health care ended up being the quality you’d expect of free health care,” said Friedman.
After noticing signs of infection, Friedman bounced up the chain of Central American hospitals, eventually ending up in an upper-tier hospital in San Jose, where he stayed for a week after having surgery.
“By the time I got to Costa Rica, I only saw white people around me. It was clear almost no one who lived nearby could afford this quality of care,” said Friedman.
Friedman knew he couldn’t close the health care gap in South and Central America on his own. So he enlisted the help of Carlson, an acquaintance from his MCAT class, who has always had a passion for global health.
Carlson said tough times earlier in his life, combined with a mother who was devoted to helping their community, inspired in him a passion for helping others. However, DU Global Medical Brigades has helped him further his aspirations.
“I think what I’ve needed for the longest time is an experience like this. As much as I say I want to be a doctor and help those that are suffering, as a pre-med student, you’re constantly hitting the books. We’re used to America and studying for this concept or idea of what could happen, but you don’t get to see that. You need reality to motivate you. This is the motivation I need to fill my heart with care and compassion outside of just working in a hospital,” said Carlson.
Friedman and Carlson have quickly turned their passion into action – once they got started, there was just a “spark,” they said. Their fundraising efforts began by reaching out to pharmaceutical companies and raising awareness by tabling at Pioneer pre-game events. This quarter, they have paired with Jamba Juice to sell smoothies outside of Sturm on Thursdays, of which they receive 20 percent of the funding.
They also tabled outside of King Soopers in January, where they handed out brown paper bags with a list of medicines they would need for the trip, like multivitamins and ibuprofen. The Wednesday after Valentine’s day, Crimson and Gold bar and tavern on University Blvd. hosted the Heartbreak for Honduras fundraiser, during which 10 percent of all sales between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. went to the trip.
In total, the two estimate they have fundraised around $5,200 in online donations, fundraising, and donated medical supplies, with donated boxes of supplies such as baby formula and analgesics on the way.
Both said the process of organizing such a large operation has been humbling and eye-opening.
“I think one of the largest difficulties is trying to communicate the importance of getting things done to everyone as a whole. We tried to encourage collaborations. It is a process, there is a timeline. From the administrative standpoint, we want to level the playing field, but there’s always that tug of war between leading and directing and being a good friend. Everyone’s busy – and we understand that,” said Carlson.
Friedman agreed, citing the support of their executive board, which includes students Emily English, Morgan Mendel , Hengyi Chen, Erin Henderson and Amber Meservey, as a key to their success.
Although putting it together has been challenging, they concur that the importance of the trip has kept them going.
“I just kept picturing the Honduran mothers and their children, waiting in line. I thought, ‘If we don’t put in all our effort now, I might have to turn away 400 people who need care,'” said Carlson.
“I just had to have faith that it was going to work out,” Friedman added. “With 300 to 400 patients coming through the clinic a day, I didn’t want to tell anyone we ran out of medicine.”
As seniors, the pair wants to ensure sustainability of the organization in upcoming years, as well as increased funding. Registration for the 2013 trip begins the week of April 16.
“We have established this relationship with Honduras and we don’t want it to wither away. There are kids at DU who have the passion – and we want to see it succeed,” said Carlson.
