Baylor in Brazil (2023) Project summary

Christina Asiedua
Introduction
The Baylor in Brazil (BIB) program Summer Study Abroad Program is a community and
mission-based program that aims to engage students in experiential learning through community-
based partnerships that promote health and community capacity building in Brazilian
communities.
This year BIB program partnered with Mount Sinai Baptist Church in Vitoria and the
First Baptist Church in Anchieta. The BIB team comprised of a group of public health, pre-med
and pre- dent students, interpreters and two professors, Dr. Robert Doyle and Dr. Eva Doyle. The
churches we partnered with introduced us to the community and schools. We engaged in church
activities, orphanage visitations, school presentations, and community engagements.
At the churches and schools, adolescents were introduced to healthy topics such as
healthy choices, reproductive health, bullying, and mental health. We also engaged students with
skits on dental health, alcohol, transformation, and other activities. These health topics are
essential to enable adolescents to make good choices for their health and life. Church and
community leaders keep in touch with the schools even after the BIB program has ended for the
year.

Church/worship/testimonies
The first church we visited was a Baptist church in Vitoria. This was not the church the
program was partnering with. My responsibility at this service was to share a testimony about
myself and later talk to a group of adolescents about me, what I study at Baylor university, future
aspirations, and global health, and what I hope to learn whiles in Brazil.
It was a wonderful experience to share my testimony with adolescents and the church
members. I shared a story about God’s faithfulness in my life, my Christian journey and how I
hope to learn from the people of Brazil and their health system as this is important to my career. I
led a small group with an interpreter to ask them about themselves and to share with them
information about myself.

School Presentations in Vitoria and Anchieta

The school presentations for this year Baylor in Brazil were healthy choices, reproductive
and sexual health, bullying, mental health, and interpersonal violence. I was the leader for the
mental health presentation. Before going to Brazil, I amended the mental health presentation,
developed lesson plan and activity plan for the presentation. I did mental health presentations to
adolescents in thirteen classes at three schools and a church.
The mental health topic was a new topic to Brazil by Baylor, and I was excited to teach it.
Before each teaching day, the coordinating team prepares by arranging teaching material,
repacking used items for class activities, and ensure items needed for teaching are all set. This
made me learn about organization and time management. In the schools, the churches the
program partnered with helped with the scheduling and organizing students and teachers for the
presentation. This collaborative effort of the team and the church always made the school
presentations successful and impactful. I also led a team of volunteers for the school
presentations. I introduced the presentation to them, practiced the activities the students were
going to do during the presentation, and indicated to them the roles they are expected to play
during each mental health presentation.
Aside from school presentations, the team had skit activities for children, and I
participated in them. There were skits for dental health, life transformation, how alcohol is
dangerous to health. I helped in the set up for the activities and sharing learning materials during
the activities. During the skit activities, I help the children with their drawings and encourage
them to participate and pay attention to the activity. I also led a physical activity session with
elementary school children. We exercised to some music and calculated the steps accumulated
from the activity from the pedometer.

Health Center
Sistema Único de Saude (SUS) known as the Unified Health System Brazilian public
health system. The health of the population in Brazil is a constitutional right and the government
ensures that everyone has free access to the healthcare system. The health system ranges from
simple care to the highest level of care. It is universal and free access for the entire population.
A health center visit was made to the SUS in Vitoria. The public health system attends to
the communities in Vitoria and provides the basic healthcare needs of these communities. These
basic healthcare needs include general OPD, dental, ophthalmology, and emergency care. At the
center, patients are first registered into the system, taken to the nurse’s station to take their vitals
and medical history before scheduled to see a doctor. They had a general OPD, a dental unit,
pharmacy, autoclave unit to sterilize equipment, laboratory, and a canteen that caters for staff. We
were fortunate to witness the psychiatrist with a group of people going through mental health
counseling. The team has been running a for long period of time, creating a safe place for people
with mental health disorders to talk to others about their problems and they learn how to manage
their conditions.
The unified Health System was introduced by Dr. Leila in Brazil. Dr. Leila is a
pediatrician in one of the public health systems. Every primary health care unit is organized in
family teams which are made up of physicians, nurses, and community health workers. This unit
of doctors and nurses conducts home visits for geriatric patients and provides counseling for
them.

Water treatment plant visit

We visited two water treatment plants in Anchieta. These treatment plants use two
different sources of water – the river, wells. We looked at how water is pumped from the source,
filtered, and disinfected to make clean water safe for human consumption. The water is usually
treated with chlorine and the level of chloring is checked to ensure it’s in the right range before
distributed by gravity to various homes.
Summary
Baylor in Brazil gave me firsthand experience of global health and achieving health
outcomes in underserved communities. Through school presentations and community
engagement, I was able to contribute to global efforts aimed at educating to improve the health of
people. This is also an avenue for health promotion to increase the control of people over their
health to make good choices for their health and mental health. The faith-based aspect of Baylor
in Brazil made me understand that global health is also a calling and it’s instructed by God to
reach out to people and help them have good health in abundance.