Galloway, N.J. – Stockton University junior
Dominique Tye (Roxbury/Roxbury), a member of the Osprey women's cross country and track & field teams, spent eight days in South America during winter break. Tye and her roommate Paige Blake, both of whom are student workers in the Stockton Athletics office, took part in a MEDLIFE service learning trip to Lima, Peru.
Tye and Blake joined a group of students from the University of South Carolina on the MEDLIFE excursion. In Peru, they worked with medical professionals and community leaders to perform medical services and educational workshops for the local population.
MEDLIFE is an organization that partners with low-income communities in Latin America and Africa to improve their access to medicine, education, and community development initiatives. They achieve their mission through service learning trips, the MEDLIFE Project Fund, and student empowerment.
Tye is a Biology major at Stockton with a concentration in pre-Nursing and Blake is an Occupational Therapy major. In the fall, Tye scored at five meets for the Stockton women's cross country team with a best finish of 12th in two races. The junior competes in the distance events for the track team, including the mile, 1500m, 3000m and 5000m races.
Tye recently took the time to answers some questions about her experience:
How did this trip come about and how long were you there?
A hometown friend of mine attends the University of South Carolina and she is in the MEDLIFE chapter at her school. She asked if I wanted to go with her since we are both studying to work in healthcare. We were in Lima for eight days.
What were some of your duties as a volunteer for MEDLIFE?
As a volunteer, we had four service days. Day one was a community enhancement project. Our part in the project was to help build a staircase, which makes the community a safer place for the residents to get around. The next three days, we participated in mobile clinics. The mobile clinics involved general medicine, dentistry, OB/GYN, pharmacy, triage, and toothbrushing. Our role was to assist the medical professionals and help the clinics run smoothly.
How would you describe the environment that you were working and living in?
The area that we were living in was very nice. We stayed in the Miraflores district of Lima, which has nice restaurants, shops, great nightlife, and plenty of things for tourists to do. The environment in which we worked however was very poor. We took an hour to two-hour bus ride every day to get to our work sites and the living conditions there were unsanitary and dangerous. The air quality was so poor that it was hard to see three feet in front of you on some days.
What did you learn from this experience that will help you as a student and in your future career?
One major takeaway from this experience was how lucky I am and how much I take for granted. My future career goal is to be a nurse and this trip was so inspiring to see the extent to which people in other parts of the world could use the help of medical care. I loved this service trip and I want to do them my whole life, especially once I am a licensed practitioner.
Did you have much free time, and if so, how did you spend it?
We had weekends completely to ourselves, which we spent touring Lima. We went paragliding over the city, swam at the beach, ate at a bunch of restaurants, and shopped at the Larcomar, which is Lima's famous mall. Our only free time during the week was after dinner, which we spent relaxing in our hotel. The service days were very tiring, and at night all we wanted to do was rest.
What was your favorite part of the trip or favorite thing about the trip?
My favorite part about this service trip was working the mobile clinics and being able to interact with the children. Although there was a language barrier, the kids were very happy to see us and were eager to get medical attention. They were full of laughter and enjoyed every moment we spent with them. The people in the communities were so appreciative of our help that they threw us a party at the end of the week to say thank you. We made a noticeable impact on the communities that we worked in, and this was definitely the most memorable part of the trip.