As I flew from Washington, D.C. to Johannesburg, anticipation, excitement, and overwhelming gratitude grew for the opportunity to serve as a Rice 360 Intern in Blantyre, Malawi this summer. Our team is working at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH) starting on Monday. We each have our individual technical skills and strengths, and are driven by our passion for global health and service. As an architecture student interested in both sustainable design and medicine, I look forward to the unique opportunity to combine my interests and use them to serve at QECH.

We are collaborating with the ELMA Foundation, the University of Malawi College of Medicine, USAID Saving Lives at Birth (SLAC), and the USAID Mission in Malawi to help improve efficiency of and accessibility to neonatal care. Projective architectural plans will inform the public government-funded and church-funded (CHAM) hospitals of the basic capacities for sustainable neonatal care and identify target wards for further strengthening and design. While we are mapping the hospitals, we will also be supplying the bCPAP technology developed by Rice students and faculty, in hope that all Malawian babies who are struggling to breathe will have access.

We will be spending our first week acclimating to the hospital setting, learning from healthcare providers, fellow students and patients, and keeping our eyes open for needs that are not yet being met so that we can begin creating feasible sustainable solutions. I will be posting about twice a week for 8 weeks, and look forward to sharing this experience with you! I would like to thank each of the members of the Rice 360 Advisory Board and Faculty for their support and generosity.