Nadia Nawabi, M1, Class of 2022
In the Summer of 2016, Nadia Nawabi travelled to Uganda as the president of Globemed at UMKC. She stayed in Uganda for 2 months and lived as a local would in a rural village. She mentioned that living as a local meant she only had the opportunity to bathe maybe once a week if she was lucky and she primarily ate foods similar to vegan faire during the entire duration of her trip. Nawabi spoke of the fundraising efforts of the Globemed organization at UMKC to raise funding for a clinic in rural Uganda. The organization sends a team to the clinic every summer to speak with the clinic staff and locals and to better ask what projects they need to allocate the funds towards. This allows the Globemed organization to build a better relationship with the community utilizing the clinic, as well as allowing the students to take the time to understand what the people there want and what they believe they need the most. UMKC Globemed also helps carry out projects with the locals, and Nawabi had the opportunity to implement a sanitation and sexual health project. The project began with Nawabi and her fellow classmates giving lectures on sanitation ans sexual health at local schools. She noted that the greatest memory she took from this trip was the smiles she saw there everyday.
“The villagers lived in extreme poverty, yet they never failed to smile and share what little they had to those around them. They had little to nothing, but gave everything. I have never seen such genuine happiness. We as Americans are blessed with so much yet have so much difficulty with finding happiness and a reason to smile.”
-Nadia Nawabi, M1
Nadia Nawabi also travelled to Japan in the summer of 2018. Nawabi had always wanted to go to Japan since she was a child. She noted that the food and culture and even manners were starkly different from what we know as the norm in America. Nawabi said her travels to Japan were an overall amazing experience.
“You always hear about people going to Europe, but I wanted to go somewhere that would be a bit more adventuous. I loved every minute I spent there and would go again in a heartbeat.”
– Nadia Nawabi, M1
Med Intima 