Introduction of the team:
Collection
(5)
-
Collection
Student Wellbeing
StudyTrust is an NGO based out of South Africa (SA), and serves the education market by rewarding determined South African under- and post-grad students with bursaries (grants) and scholarships. StudyTrust’s partners include, but are not limited to, Toyota, Amazon, and Cisco. StudyTrust supports their students beyond financial connections by providing mentorship and support so they may thrive academically and personally. Global Health students will help support local SA communities by focusing on the well-being of students linked to this organization. Furthermore, many of the participating SA students are in the fields of software engineering, mathematics, economics and agriculture, subjects which may be interesting to Global Health students.
-
Collection
Urbanisation and Urban Agriculture in Amsterdam
Sixty per cent of all people in the world are expected to live in cities by 2030 (United Nations, n.d.). With this rapid urbanization rate, the living environment in cities is becoming more and more important. Challenges that come with urbanization are for example air pollution, affordable and qualitative housing, and social cohesion. These factors all influence the physical and mental health of the inhabitants. The city of Amsterdam declared that by 2050 the city should be inclusive (Gemeente Amsterdam, n.d.). A possible contribution to the mental and physical health of the citizens of the city of Amsterdam could be urban agriculture. The aim of this research is to investigate the implementation of urban agriculture, to be specific kitchen gardens, which could be of added value to the community of Amsterdam.
United Nations. (n.d.). Cities - United Nations Sustainable Development Action 2015. Retrieved November 12, 2022, from https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/cities/We would like to introduce you to our team members of the Urbanisation and Urban Agriculture in Amsterdam project! We are a group of five members: Emma, Denizhan, Brenna, Emma and Wendy. We each have a different background, which is beneficial within a transdisciplinary project. This gives us opportunities to learn and share our knowledge from different perspectives. This upcoming five months we will work on this project in cooperation with the municipality of Amsterdam.
-
Collection
Combating Physical Inactivity
VoorUit works with neighborhood residents to provide a source of inclusivity and education. In this project students have worked on the Wildeman gezond campaign. Tis campaign focuses on the improvement of the overall health of all residents of the Wildemanbuurt in Amsterdam Nieuw-West. This project focuses specifically on increasing physical activity levels of children between 5 and 12 years old in the neighborhood.
Our team consists of three students from the Global Health Minor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam: Mirte, Esther & Sunniva. Mirte (21) studies Health and Society at Wageningen University, Esther (20) studies Biomedical Sciences at Maastricht University and Sunniva (23) is an exchange students that studies Training, Health and Performances, with focus on physical activity and health, at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences. As you can see, this team comes from different disciplines and therefore has an interdisciplinary view within this project.
-
Collection
Urban Farming
Almere Oosterwold embraces urban agriculture as an alternative food system. Located in the peri-urban areas of the Dutch city of Almere, Oosterwold is a large-scale experiment of organic urban development with a high self-reliance to organize infrastructural works that otherwise would be the municipality’s responsibility. Residents are responsible to determine their own home, and to decide on the construction and management of roads, paths, greenery, water, and public space. Yet, with great freedom comes great responsibility. A few years into the experiment, several challenges are identified i.e. organization of wastewater management by citizens and provision of public goods and externalities. Sustainable urban agriculture is not yet being realized and to address these challenges Global Health students will collaborate with Oosterwold employees and residents to improve social cohesion. Nowhere in the Netherlands do residents contribute to the development of a new green city on this scale, and through this work students may be an integral part of this unique community.
Arial View of Oosterwold: https://maakoosterwold.nl/vogelvlucht-2022/
Vimeo of Oosterwold: https://vimeo.com/210739423
-
Collection
Healthcare access for undocumented migrants
Amsterdam City Rights was founded in 2018 and is a collaboration between people with
and without the right documents. It actively tries to ensure that undocumented migrants in
Amsterdam have access to healthcare services.
The goal is to not only inform undocumented people about their rights to healthcare services but
especially to empower people to guide themselves (and others) through the complex healthcare
system. Furthermore, through advocacy efforts, Amsterdam City Rights group tries to urge the
city of Amsterdam to care for all of its citizens.
Recently, we as students doing the minor Global Health at the VU, joined this group by conducting research on the barriers undocumented migrants experience with gaining healthcare access. Now it is time for action by developing tools and workshops to put these learnings into practice.So who are we? Our names are Fien, Mila, Lara, Laura and Esmee and we all came from different universities and studies to follow the minor Global Health at the VU from September 2022 to February 2023. Fien and Mila are third year bachelor in Health Sciences at the VU. Lara is a third year bachelor student Biomedical Sciences in Utrecht and Esmee is a fourth year bachelor student Midwifery in Groningen. Laura studies Nutrition and exchanged sunny Valencia for chilly Amsterdam and makes us an international group! We really enjoy working together and bringing our different backgrounds and disciplines together to work on this project. We hope you enjoy our platform!
