Name: Varsha Prabhakar
Year: 2017
House: Jordan
Major: Neuroscience
Hometown: Cupertino, CA
How did you get involved in Global Medical Brigades, and what exactly do you do?
My friends and I have always wanted to go on a medical missions trip so we decided to bring a chapter of Global Medical Brigades to Smith last semester. Global Brigades is the largest student-led health and development organization in the world with the goal of empowering students to create a positive change in rural communities that lack basic health care resources. College chapters help by recruiting U.S health professionals and collecting medicine that is distributed to the communities they travel to. Most of the areas that GMB works with would have no access to health care without the efforts of college chapters like ours!
What are your plans for your upcoming trip to Panama?
We are really excited to be planning our first brigade to Panama over J-Term. Our team has been working hard this semester to raise money for the medicine that we are bringing on our trip. Our biggest fundraiser coming up is a “Friends With Benefits” concert next Friday (Nov. 21 at 7 PM in Davis Ballroom). The event will be hosted by SIKOS and include performances by the Smiffenpoofs, the Vibes, Maggie from Hannah and Maggie and other talented Smithies! All the proceeds go towards the purchase of medicine so everyone should come support a great cause while listening to amazing music!
What do you hope to gain from this experience?
I’m really excited to bring such a great program to Smith, and I hope more students are inspired to get involved. We’re really excited to have the opportunity to directly help people while also growing individually. All the planning has been such a huge learning experience and we can’t wait to see the positive effect of our efforts.
What are your future plans for GMB?
I hope to plan more trips while I’m here and get more students involved!
How can we get involved?
Anyone who is interested should email gmb@smith.edu. We want to involve as many Smithies as we can who are just as passionate about this cause as we are. And come out to our concert!