This one-semester elective course, which concluded in January 2014, is the result of a partnership between Agnes Irwin’s CAG and the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.  With a special focus on health inequities, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing professors and others have led discussions with the girls on a variety of health issues that affect girls all over the world. 

The course, open to seniors only, has been quite a success! Not only have the girls learned a great deal about health issues globally, but they have also learned how to ask meaningful questions and analyze problems at a deeper level.

The course has covered health concerns such as HIV/AIDS, hypertension, diabetes, cancer and many other communicable and non-communicable diseases. Moreover, the course has focused on understanding both the causes of these health issues and specific interventions to overcome a variety of health problems. While the majority of speakers have been professors or graduate students from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, we have also had an expert in mobile health systems, students from the Akilah School in Rwanda and a healthcare lawyer visit the class to give alternative views of health and healthcare. One of the most significant topics that we have discussed this year is the relationship between a culture and girls’ health and health outcomes. Early on in the course, the girls recognized that addressing girls’ health concerns was not simply a matter of lecturing on the “American way.”

The course is, by nature, quite dynamic and driven by the interests that the girls express. Therefore, we have focused more heavily on topics surrounding reproduction, sex trafficking and poverty. As the course is run as a seminar, the girls also complete unique assessments. Recently, the girls were tasked with creating a Sesame Street character that would address a health concern or risk factor for girls in a country or location of their choosing. Characters that the girls created included a girl muppet who likes to experiment with various careers and a muppet for Sesame Street China who works to help girls accept their bodies as they are. The students included a “letter to the parents” with their muppet to explain the connection between their character and girls’ health globally. As a final project,  the girls drafted papers in the form of grant proposals that focus on a specific interest that they have developed over the past few months.