Honduras is a Caribbean country located between Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. It is a country of dusty red shingles, wet cobbled streets, and laughter. I went there this past August, to volunteer at Dr. San Manuel Hospital in the town of Gracias, in the department of Lempira. As the plane flew over Honduras, my eyes inhaled the sight of proud green hills and loyal valleys which stretched beyond my sightlines. Just before we started descending, I looked up to see a pearly crescent, basking in the early afternoon sun. Turning to the elderly woman beside me, I said, “Your country is beautiful.” She nodded, as if to reply, “Yes, I know.” Past customs, baggage collection, and reception, I walked out of Toncontin International Airport. And for the second time, I saw the green hills, this time, from a different angle. Towering around the capital, it would be unfitting to call any other structure a skyscraper in the presence of these hills.

Bougainville is an island rich in mineral deposits. It fought a war of independence after reacting to the mistreatment of its people and land by foreign mining corporations as well as foreign governments. The island’s people were victorious in their resistance and experienced progress during the struggle against a seven year blockade. They were forced to draw upon the land for enhancement while people suffered lack of needed supplies. In 2008 it appears that another mine and another company threaten to cause a repeat of events. The people of Bougainville seem to possess enough determination to prevail once more. However, it still begs the question of why should they have to?

I have never heard of Nakuru. Like so many other places, it is a new name from a far off land: foreign to my imagination and experience. But for the handful of Queen’s students who travel to Africa each year through Queen’s Health Outreach (QHO), Nakuru’s solid ground is a reality that will continue to affect them for a long time to come. I had the pleasure of interviewing Andrew Phillips, a fourth year Political Science Major and now the Public Relations manager for QHO, and got a peek into his experience in Nakuru. The group flew to Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, in the beginning of June in 2008 and travelled to Nakuru in the Rift Valley Province of Kenya. There, they worked with their partner organization YESS, which stands for Youth Empowerment Strategic Scheme, which is made up of local Kenyans and university students. For the first five weeks the team travelled to a different school each week to implement their one week program. During their sixth and final week they devoted time to daily projects such as erecting at new road sign for a school and volunteering at a baby orphanage for children who had lost parents to AIDS. They also ran a community leadership training day which allowed youth and adults from surrounding communities to come together and discuss health issues in their communities. This created a networking opportunity and forged partnerships in addition to allowing the student voice to be heard amongst adult leaders.

On October 25, 1977, a young Somali man developed a rash. It was smallpox. The man, who survived, was remarkable for he was the planet’s last case of naturally occurring smallpox. Eleven years after smallpox became the first disease to be wiped from the face of the earth, health ministers around the world voted to make polio the second.

Bangladesh is one of the poorest and most populated countries of South East Asia and has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. Despite enormous investments in family planning and child survival programmes, pregnancy and childbirth in Bangladesh continues to carry great risks, most of which are avoidable. One in every six pregnant women develops obstetric complications which could have been detected beforehand . “Only one out of twenty women in Bangladesh receives emergency obstetric services. Every year, 28,000 women die of obstetric complications in Bangladesh”

Globalization creates and propagates social and health inequalities, constituting one part of the argument of its numerous detractors. Jamaica is one of several countries in which policies to promote economic and social development have resulted in the deterioration of health and wellbeing for its populace. The processes of globalization, namely structural adjustment policies, trade liberalization, free trade zones, and privatization, impede the economic and social growth of developing nations, causing deleterious effects on public health.