Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Scholar Spotlight: Ha Tran's Travels to Ghana!


Photo from www.uniteforsight.org

Originally from Santa Rosa County, Ha Tran is a Take Stock in Children alumna and was named a Leaders 4 Life fellow in 2011.  In her second year at Duke University, Ha is majoring in neuroscience with a concentration in global health.  Her focus on global health has led her to become involved with the organization Unite for Sight, and will culminate in an eight week trip to Ghana, Africa this coming summer.

Ha writes, “I started looking into this program though my global health course here at Duke. Our yearlong case study focused on an NGO and I chose Unite for Sight.  Aside from the obvious benefits of this program, what I think is most significant is that UFS is quite literally breaking down the barrier for access to health care.”  Ha continues that she has taken a variety of global health courses throughout her time at Duke and finds UFS to be a role model for all other organizations to follow.  “In our class, we looked at everything from tax forms to end-of-the-year reports to analyze the effectiveness of this organization.  As with any program, there are things to be improved. I hope to help improve those aspects during my eight weeks in Ghana.”

Ha will specifically be working in an eye clinic to screen for eye disease, implementing education programs, and assisting in surgery for children and adults.  Traveling to rural villages, she will be providing eye care to those who do not have access to an eye doctor.  Ha’s family emigrated from Vietnam, where there is a saying “Cho ánh sáng,” meaning “the ability to give light.”  Through Ha’s commendable efforts, she will be providing vision, light and hope to the people of Ghana.  Aside from this trip, Ha has also personally collected over 825 glasses to donate and has completed over 30 hours of medical training for this trip, as well as an additional 60 hours of outside training through Unite For Sight and her global health courses at Duke University.  We are so proud of Ha’s efforts, and we encourage you to check out her web page here to learn more about this remarkable program.


If you have any questions about her trip, you can contact Ha at ha.tran@duke.edu or call her at (850) 686-6067.


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