Multicultural Health Institute

As I was looking for ways to put myself out there in my first year and help as many people as possible MHI really stood out to me because they do so much and never stop regardless of what may come in their way and I think that is a really strong mindset. I have learned so much while I am here and I recommend this internship to all of my friends on a regular basis. I hope to see many new faces and here's to continuing our health objectives even long after Covid-19 has passed!

Studying for my dual B.A. in Poli-Science and Anthropology, I was ecstatic to discover a non-profit organization that worked to highlight and ameliorate inequities and disparities in the healthcare sector.  As evidently seen in the neglect of certain historically marginalized sectors of the global populous, this sociological interaction between the state and socio-culture can have tragic and devastating effects and consequences. To work for an organization that employs a public initiative to combat these unjust consequences and do whatever in their ability to minimize these impacts, even if only a little bit, makes me proud to assist the Multicultural Health Institute's mission of social altruism.

I am a recent graduate from the State College of Florida. I am now a freshman at the University of Florida and am studying biochemistry and computer science. Though I’ve always had interests in the digital world, the field of healthcare is much more fascinating and important to me. In high school, I wanted to help my local community in any way I could, so I applied to volunteer for the Multicultural Health Institute and have been working at MHI since then! I have done a plethora of work at MHI, from translation, website updates, inventory updates, and most recently, I was part of the MHI Scholars’ efforts to combat COVID-19 as head of the social media team. As head of the social media team, I posted information and graphics to various social media pages, studied the analytics of our various social media pages, and organized the social media team’s tasks and goals.

I am the Latinx community scholar for the Multicultural Health Institute and have previously served as a TA, intern, and Latinx COVID-19 Community Coordinator. After having worked with MHI for over four years, and whilst graduating into a pandemic, I took a more active role in MHI; helping to ramp up and connect our communities to testing and tracing efforts in the critical early months of the pandemic. Now, with the push to reach herd immunity especially in underserved communities, I am helping to coordinate vaccination efforts. As someone who is both gay and latin I know, first hand, the types of health disparities that exist in our health system. Working with the MHI and Dr. Lisa Merritt, we are bridging the gaps in our health system, and working together to end them for good.

I’m a third-year at New College of Florida, majoring in Computer Science. I mostly focus on data privacy and rights. As an MHI Scholar, I work as part of the Data Science team. We research into the racial disparities of COVID-19, and we will continue to fight to get racial data at all state testing sites. We are also looking into the medical examiner’s data that was recently released. We hope that reviewing this data can give us some clues as to the most common and most deadly co-morbid conditions, including strokes, high blood pressure, and diabetes. We will continue to support the other MHI scholars & community partners in fighting this epidemic.

I joined the Multicultural Health Institute because I wanted to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has hurt all of us in unique ways, and that means that the response to the pandemic has to be tailored to the needs of each and every community. This vision of equitable and community-oriented assistance is embodied by MHI, and I’m proud to have had the opportunity to work with the team to help people and to save lives.

Having aspired towards medicine since a young age, I have been working with MHI since I was a high school student. I was initially searching for exposure to the medical field and ended up gaining incredibly diverse and immersive exposure to caring for both people and communities. My time at MHI has developed my capacities as both a caregiver and a leader, and I look forward to carrying these tools into the future. Beginning this fall I will be transitioning into medical school at Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine.

I’m an intern at MHI. The Multicultural Health Institute has shown me what it means to take action and make a change for the well-being of a community, which made me want to help and support them out even more. While working with them, I’ve been introduced to the kindest and friendliest people who all work together toward a common goal of helping communities, especially in this time. I hope the work of MHI reaches far and beyond as we continue to provide our best work in hopes of change.