Dear Queen's Supporter,

As a medical student at Queen's, I give back to the local community by practicing medicine here in Canada. Thanks in part to gifts from alumni like you, I have also helped disadvantaged groups abroad, where skills like mine are not readily available.

In my travels I've seen so much poverty. I come home even more thankful for everything I have - my home and the food on my table, but also my education and the sterile, well-equipped medical environment where I work.

But on a recent trip, it was what I left behind that made me most thankful.

Educating women and girls to help slow the spread of AIDS

In the summer of 2009, as part of my course work, I travelled to Tanzania to help fight the spread of AIDS among young women.

Due to poverty and socially accepted gender-inequity, women are the group most at risk of contracting AIDS in Africa. With 6.6% of the population HIV positive and life expectancy of an AIDS patient between 18 and 35 years, I felt compelled to help.

I developed an education program and, during my three months in Moshi, Tanzania, worked directly with girls and boys age 14 to 23 (and some of their young mothers) to teach them about sexuality, pregnancy and the spread of disease. The goal was to break taboos, and empower young girls to take control of their bodies and protect themselves.

My project was just one piece of the prevention solution. A comprehensive prevention program looks at much more than the health care system and health education - the areas my work focused on. Luckily, Queen's faculty and students are doing much more - like Dr. Karen Yeates.

Preventing through Empowerment

Professor Yeates' vision, which is becoming reality with the help of student volunteers like me, addresses AIDS in a comprehensive way from a central location.

The Together We Can Centre in Moshi started out as a women's centre in 2007 and has grown to include a medical clinic, legal support, counseling services, a shelter, business training and a micro finance program. Together, these programs help provide at risk women with the resources, skills and strength they need to break the cycle of poverty and the social disadvantages that increase their risk of infection.

Made possible through our gifts

Bringing theory out of the classroom and into real life situations both locally and globally is invaluable, both to my education at Queen's and to the people I'm able to treat and educate.

Not only did I help empower disadvantaged groups in Tanzania and help slow the spread of AIDS in Moshi, I also learned how to practice medicine with limited resources where ingenuity is the most valuable asset available.

As alumni, your gifts are critical to ensuring Queen's students like me continue to enjoy top quality learning both in and beyond the classroom, and that the application of our skills and knowledge continues to improve our world and our lives.

Empowering disadvantaged groups like the young women in Moshi is a long-term undertaking, but through sharing our skills and education, Queen's students and faculty are making a difference.

Just as students' projects beyond the classroom are vital to bettering the world, your gifts are vital to ensuring we acquire the skills and have the opportunity to undertake these projects. Please, add your support with a monthly gift to the 2010-11 Queen’s Annual Appeal today.

Yours in thanks,
Sharon Peacock, Meds'11

Your gift to the Queen's Annual A ppeal is critical to ensuring new discoveries and further innovations. Just as each discovery is pivotal to improving our world and our lives, annual gifts are pivotal to the discoveries.

Please join us in support of work like that done by Sharon and Dr. Yeates by making a gift to the Annual Appeal . 

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