My Work While Abroad in Crete, Greece

I could talk about my trip to Greece for hours, but to spare you the time, I'll give you a quick summary of my incredible, educational trip to the island of Crete.

 

I was admitted into this study abroad trip through my Masters of Communication & Media program at Rutgers University. The course I took while in Greece was called, "Health Communication & Health Inequalities Across the Health Professions in Greece and the U.S.A". The course objectives were to immerse ourselves into the culture of Crete, while simultaneously examining health disparities through various health professional contexts, adopting a socio-ecological approach to health as we examined how individual characteristics (e.g., age, ethno-racial background, education) play a role in health, but also how interpersonal relationships, the organizations we interact with and are part of, as well as the communities and the legal/policy environments that we live in impact our health.

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We examined communication as a health-related outcome, as an important social process through which the environments we traverse in our everyday lives shape our health, and through a technological lens as new and emerging digital technologies are transforming health communication from and between health professionals and patients/clients. 

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We visited various communities while in Crete to see first hand the difference in health disparities among the population. We visited the Municipal Open Elder Care Center in Malevizi, The Roma Population in Nea Alikarnassos, and a facility caring for Unaccompanied Minors with Refugee Status in Anogeia. 

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Our final project was a Community Health Project that developed a research prospectus to help a community located in a specific geographic space, to address a health issue of particular concern to its members. My group's focus was the Roma Population, whom we were able to visit while on the island. The second portion of the project, the Photovoice, gave students the chance to compile their favorite memories, and learnings from the trip.

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Below is both my group's Project Presentation, as well as the Team's Photovoice Presentation. I not only designed the entire presentation that we shared with our class and the staff at Hellenic Mediterranean University, but I edited the entirety of our Photovoice assignment through my knowledge of Adobe Premiere Pro. We received perfect grades for both assignments, and our Photovoice assignment even brought tears to some of my class's eyes!

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