Sydney Chen, from Virginia, is graduating with a degree in comparative studies with a regional focus on Africa and a co-major in global health. She’s a member of Defining Movement, a multicultural dance group on Duke’s campus. Chen was also part of the Duke Global Health Institute’s Student Research Training program (SRT) team based in Kisumu, Kenya, where community health workers used a mobile phone app, mSaada, to coordinate screenings for human papillomavirus (HPV). That work inspired Chen and her teammates to launch Jali Watoto Childcare Centre at a local hospital, giving mothers access to childcare while they attend medical appointments.
I chose Duke because … I did a campus tour and the students who led it talked about how, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, there still was a sense of community here, and that was the biggest tipping point for me. I was looking for stellar academics and the chance to be challenged by new ideas and people. The latter is what led me to global health at Duke. It challenged what I thought and what I could do as a 19-year-old.
My most meaningful experience at Duke has been… I think about the moments when people believed in me. In Kenya, Megan Huchko, M.D., oversaw our team – myself, Melat Woldetensae and Isabel Siebrecht – when we came up with this idea of Jali Watoto. And she said, “Yes, I’ll help you, and I’ll support you through it.”
This year, our project was awarded a $10,000 Davis Projects for Peace grant. After graduation, I’ll head back to Kenya for two weeks to work with Kisumu County on expanding the childcare center model to other hospitals, because they haven’t had the resources or time to dedicate to a project like this.
A key lesson my global health courses taught me is ... humility – academically and personally. My professors made it clear that no matter how much you study an issue, you will never understand it until you go to where the issue is and talk to the people living with it. That has been a key lesson in how I conduct myself doing global health work, and how I approach the field.
On a personal level, when I went to Kenya, I realized I didn’t know how to turn on a gas stove because at home, I have an electric stove. It was a moment where you can’t help but come away with being mindful, curious and an open person in this line of work.
My most memorable global experience at Duke was ... when I danced on a stage in Kenya. I was with my teammates at an outside dining place that had live music. Our supervisor invited us to dance in the crowd and one thing about me is I love to dance. She asked if I wanted to go on stage, and I said yes! When I was up there, I stayed in the back until she brought me to the front, and I danced with everyone else. It was such a unique moment for me to understand how dance is truly global and something I practice at Duke was understood and welcomed in a country I had never been to before.
My advice for Duke students … Talk to your professors because they have fascinating lives outside of the research they do. I had a professor, Eileen Chow, Ph.D., who had a gap year after graduating college and worked on film festivals in Italy and was also a journalist in China. Professor Dennis Clements, M.D., told our Global Health Capstone class he was a line chef for a few years after graduating college. Sometimes, you can get tunnel vision about the ways to success when it seems all of your peers are doing the same thing.
I’m thankful for what DGHI has offered. Now, I want to continue volunteering in Africa. I didn’t expect my trajectory in college to be like this but now that it is, I’m grateful for it.
