November 05, 2009
Undergrad recalls her summer caring for orphans in Africa
Rebecca B. Zilberstein, of Miami, Fla., was one of 11 Clark University undergraduates who was awarded a Steinbrecher Fellowship to support her creative research project this summer and throughout the 2009-2010 academic year.
Pictured: Zilberstein (center) surrounded by children in Malawi
Rebecca B. Zilberstein, of Miami, Fla., was one of 11 Clark University undergraduates who was awarded a Steinbrecher Fellowship to support her creative research project this summer and throughout the 2009-2010 academic year.
Zilberstein and three other Clark University students received funding through the Steinbrecher Fellowship Program to spend five weeks this summer at various clinics and nurseries throughout Malawi, Africa. She documented her experiences on the Web.
Zilberstein and her classmates went with the intention of researching the health care system in hopes to establish a "Child Life" program. Once there, they realized that there was much more to learn in order to understand health care. With help from their hosts at Raising Malawi, an orphan care initiative network, the students met with multiple nongovernmental organizations in addition to hospitals and clinics in order to understand the relationship between government, international aid, and health care.
Zilberstein's blogs, which she started posting weeks before she left for Africa, tell a story of late nights and tireless effort that went into researching and writing her project proposal, and establishing the goals of her trip. The process, she claimed, was educational in itself.
"I think the most important thing we have learned thus far is how to navigate through all the systems that exist for this type of project. With this experience, I know that we will be prepared for the next time we each do real research," she wrote back in May.
Through her blog, one can sense Zilberstein's frustration with witnessing firsthand the healthcare crisis in Malawi. There, the nurses are underpaid, and therefore, they move to other countries to work for better pay, leaving Malawi's rural clinics overcrowded and understaffed.
On June 7 she wrote, "Everywhere I go in this country I am bombarded with new experiences and sights and realizations. It's kind of like when I first met these girls [her classmates] at Clark freshman year and we just kept talking and learning about the differences between our lives. I imagine that this overwhelming, sensory overload is a common feeling for many international students. Regardless, it is something I am entirely unfamiliar with as an American that never strays far from home."
Her blog, which includes photos, shows her working in, and experiencing her new surroundings in colorful detail. "…children playing with tires, men bicycling and walking down the road, beautifully dressed women carrying babies on their backs and goats running into oncoming traffic… I could not stop looking out the window, amazed and trying to familiarize myself with such images I have only seen on TV," she wrote on June 5.
Other posts describe her time living on the rocky terrain in the presence of a burning hot sun, in a religious environment where she not only had to attend devotion services twice daily, but where she and her female counterparts needed to wear wraps over their pants and stay separated from the boys.
Majoring in sociology and Spanish, Zilberstein is a member of the Class of 2011 at Clark. On campus, she is a coordinator for the Clark University High School Partnership, and she also serves as a Choices educator. Zilberstein is the daughter of Sallye Zilberstein and Yacov Zilberstein. She is a 2007 graduate of Miami Palmetto Senior High.
Steinbrecher fellowships encourage and support Clark undergraduates in their pursuit of original ideas, creative research, and community service projects. The Fellowship Program, established in 2006 in memory of David C. Steinbrecher, class of '81, by his parents, Phyllis and Stephen Steinbrecher, class of '55, is funded by generous gifts from them and from other family members and friends of David. It is directed by Professor Sharon Krefetz, former Dean of the College and chair of Clark's Department of Government and International Relations.
"The Steinbrecher Fellowship Program enables our students to pursue their passions and to engage in innovative research or much-appreciated community service. I am enormously grateful to the Steinbrecher family for making this possible," said Krefetz.