It’s a Jungle Out There!
I was recently given the opportunity to attend DGHI's Regional Partners Workshop “Developing Collaborative Approaches to Global Mental Health and Maternal and Child Health Research" in Nairobi Kenya. The goal in convening this conference was well communicated in the opening remarks by Duke Global Health Institute Director, Dr. Chris Plowe. He told us that the workshop was to be a forum for partners to build skills, share knowledge, and identify new opportunities to work together. I looked around the room bursting with seasoned global health professionals, faculty, researchers, and doctors and couldn't help but think of myself as a “tiny animal in a big jungle" and wonder how well I would meet these goals. But after three days of consuming dense information from presentations and break-out sessions, I found that I had learned a lot in the big jungle, and that my experience was well worth sharing - especially with younger staffers who may be unsure of how to navigate the jungle...