Explain why the members of marginalized communities can become discouraged by their communities’ stereotypes.

Explain why the members of marginalized communities can become discouraged by their communities’ stereotypes. This discouragement caused me to question my abilities as a student and resulted in a loss of motivation. Many Ethiopian girls who reside in rural areas do not have access to education since they live in a town called Kebribeyah, Ethiopia. Women are often branded as homemakers regardless of their educational aspirations or employment goals. They can only work in all-female environments or teach or socialize. This discourages women from pursuing other career pursuits. People in my community don’t believe it’s vital for a female to go to school, thus most don’t. I was one of the few girls who went to school. My community has one elementary, middle, and high school. My school was an hour distant from my home, but I didn’t care as long as I was in school. Many of my relatives advised my parents not to send me and my two elder sisters to school due to safety worries. I didn’t care what people thought of me or how long I had to walk to school since I believed I was setting an example for younger girls.
My family arrived as refugees in 2014. My entire education had been in Amharic and Somali, and I could barely speak English. Even though school in America was difficult, I felt fortunate that my family was safe and I could finally focus on school without being judged for it. I spent a lot of time studying English because I had no support at home, which made learning difficult. After a couple of years of hard work, I improved my language skills and cultural understanding. Despite all odds, I got into the University of Washington. I struggled in college because I was surrounded by students who were self-assured and had their entire college lives planned. In my first year of college, I felt hopeless as a first-generation student from a low-income family without a mentor. I avoided campus traditions, assuming they were not for my enjoyment. I was completely lost and unsure of what to do.

In an ideal world, anyone who wanted to pursue a career in healthcare would be able to do so. But growing up in Ethiopia, this was not my reality. In Ethiopia, there are many cultural norms and expectations, which prevent women from pursuing higher education. A woman cannot dream of getting an education beyond a high school degree. When I moved to the United States, I became more exposed to the role of Public Health and learned how it plays such an important role in our society.
I grew up in a town called Jigjiga in Ethiopia; where there are many barriers to residents obtaining proper healthcare. Many Ethiopian citizens that live in rural areas struggle to maintain a healthy lifestyle because they are unable to travel long distances to where the hospitals are found. Experiencing childhood in Jigjiga, I saw how people in my town only went to the hospital if it was a life or death situation. People would often opt-out of going to the hospital because they wanted to avoid the long travel and they also did not believe that the hospital could better their health. Many people would develop chronic health problems due to lack of prevention and early detection of diseases. The Ethiopian government has been mainly concentrating on ending famine, lack of access to clean water, healthy food, and even basic health education which caused the healthcare system to endure.
At the age of nine, I lost my uncle. I watched my uncle suffer because of the lack of attention to the healthcare system
in Ethiopia. Even though there weren’t hospitals in my town, they had clinics that lacked proper resources and materials to help patients. At a young age I saw my uncle endure the inequality of living in an area without healthcare access. He
experienced medical problems that could have been stopped with the right resources yet, I watched him suffer as I felt helpless. I remember the first night that my uncle spent at my house, he was coughing a lot, he also had chest pain, and he was having a hard time breathing. The next morning my mom took him to a hospital that was three hours away from where we lived. Once they got to the hospital, the doctors did not even ask him how he was feeling, or to even describe his symptoms. They just injected him with a vaccine without knowing his illness. That night, my uncle started coughing
up blood and having night sweats. His condition only got worse which led him to die. I asked everyone around me what was going on with him, but no one knew his illness. As I got older I started to do my own research about his symptoms and I figured it was tuberculosis, which is ranked one of the highest diseases in Ethiopia. This could have been prevented with the right resources. From that day on, I promised myself to make a change about the healthcare system in Ethiopia.
Health disparities exist in many countries, affecting a large number of marginalized individuals, such as my uncle. I understood at the age of nine that health is one’s greatest treasure. Experiencing the consequences of health inequities on a daily basis, I was inspired to pursue a higher education and pursue a career in healthcare to serve vulnerable populations and advocate to make changes for underserved communities. My interest and desire to pursue a Master’s degree in public health is a result of many obstacles, experiences, and real-life events that can be summarized in one word: perseverance. Since my childhood, I’ve been driven by the desire and ambition to improve humanity through remarkable public health skills developed through high-level experiences and professionally acquired skills. These determinations were formed by my career goals and the path I took to make my dream a reality.

My goal is to go back to Ethiopia and help hospitals get the right resources they need in order to help all people. The hospitals in the cities need information and the right equipment to rehearse medication on even the most preventable infections. I want to make sure the people in my community never go through what my uncle went through and make sure they know there is someone that knows their struggles and that wants to help them in every possible way. The Health Studies major will give me the skills that I need to excel in my future work as well as enhance the ability to empathize and help others. This major will also help me identify the cultural and social factors that have impacted our civilization by undertaking healthcare. In order for me to pursue a career as a physician assistant, there are many qualities required, which I hope to develop throughout my time in the healthcare field.

I have been working with the Somali Health Board (SHB), which is a non-profit organization formed by Somali health professionals and volunteers to address health disparities within the Somali community in King County. I have been working closely with this organization to help Somali families around the King County region by being an interpreter. One of the reasons that I wanted to work with this organization is because I know people in the Somali and other underserved communities often struggle with finding providers who they trust. There is also a language barrier, which prevents patients from advocating for their own needs. The world of “refugee health,” “social determinants of health,” and “health policy” fascinated me as I saw the range of problems that public health professionals were trying to solve in innovative ways. My Somali background has helped me understand many health disparities in my community and I plan to put this knowledge to use once I achieve my goals of furthering my public health education through the specialized coursework offered as part of its Health Systems and Population Health program.

Last Completed Projects