7A -Testing the Hypothesis

1. I believe that there is an opportunity in refugee camps for occupational and physical therapists to rehabilitate individuals to cope with their circumstances and become more independent.



2. WHO: Refugees from Syria, Myanmar, Somalia, or elsewhere.

WHAT: Many may suffer from wounds from war, ptsd from witnessing trauma and death, and they may struggle from living in impoverished refugee camps. Volunteer workers usually only go in, provide some aid, and get out. This kind of help usually only has short term effects. Individuals may have difficulty living their new daily lives due to complications from their situation.

WHY: Modern warfare destroys entire communities, rips apart families, displaces people, and causes both physical and mental pain to communities.



3. Testing the WHO: Not everybody in refugee camps need urgent responsive care. I am sure some people in refugee camps are able bodied and work to help each other. On the other hand I do know that there are individuals all over the world that need the help of physical and occupational therapists however the opportunity lies in the lending a helping hand to those most in need.



Testing the WHAT: It may not always be ethical to go in to foreign places and provide aid without knowing the cultural customs of the people being helped. Short term aid may not be as beneficial in the long run.



Testing the WHY: The “why” of this opportunity is surely different for everybody. It spans from the Syrian refugee crisis which spun from civil war, to situations like in Rohingya where the difference of religious practices has led to violence. Each refugee has their own mental or medical issues that need to be addressed so the why behind each of their situations would differ immensely.



4.

Interview 1: The first person I got into contact with was the person who inspired me to pursue this kind of life. For her own privacy reasons she will not be named but she is a local mom who is a midwife and takes trips to places like turkey where she provides emergency medical aid under the radar to refugees. I asked her about her experiences and she said that her own safety and security is something that is emphasized. She meets a connection on the inside when she gets to turkey who provides them (the group she travels with) with pistols for their own personal protection.



Interview 2: I interviewed Dr. Michael Lauzardo who is a pulmonary TB doctor at Shands. Dr. Lauzardo take trips to work with hospitals in various countries across Africa and he also runs a non-profit that works with pediatric cancer patients in the Dominican Republic. I asked about the complications he has had with running the Kiera Grace Foundation. He stressed that funding is key. He has had issues in the past of not having enough donations to pay the workers that work in his facility in the DR. When speaking about his trips to Africa, he mentioned that there are always doctors with open arms that would want to learn from doctors from other countries.



Interview 3: I sat down and spoke with my former cultural anthropology professor and asked about what she knew about medical anthropology. She brought up an example I remember from class about how there is an infection that turns individual’s pee bloody. We have a cure for this infection however in a particular culture in West Africa, they see this as a coming of age sign. Once a boy’s pee turns red it means they have become a man. She spoke a little more about how people in different cultures practice medicine and healing different.



Interview 4: I spoke to a friend that goes to NYU who had an internship with the United Nations in Switzerland over this past summer. He did not work with the UNHCR but I asked about his experiences there. He told me that the United Nations works with many different outside organizations.



Interview 5: I also sat down and talked to an occupational therapist that I am family friends with. He lives here in Gainesville but he works in the Gilchrist county schools. I asked him about his life as an occupational therapist. He said that because he works in the school system, he gets his summers off to work elsewhere. He also only works four days a week so he sees some of the kids he works with after school and on his days off. He said that OT is a very diverse field of study that can be applied to many different situations and that he definitely sees the opportunity for OT in refugee camps.



Essentially I learned that a nonprofit such as the kind I am thinking about may not always be welcomed in each region where there are refugees. Safety is something I have thought about but I do not know if I have thought about it very deeply. I now know that I can work with the United Nations to get into where I need to go but I have also learned that there is a lot more people I need to interview to really get a grasp on the situation as a whole and see the perspectives of the refugees as well.